


Out of Nowhere

by AmyPond45



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, pre-series AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-01 08:03:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15138734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmyPond45/pseuds/AmyPond45
Summary: A hundred years ago, in an alternate United States, monsters and humans have been at war as long as anyone can remember. John Winchester raises his sons in a world already overrun by the supernatural, in which humans are often on the defensive, pushed ever further west. Against this backdrop, Dean and foster-brother Sam grow up relatively carefree on a ranch near Lawrence, Kansas, protected and heavily warded, until the day Dean learns the truth about his mother, the mysterious hunter who abandoned her family when Dean was four. With his new knowledge, Dean figures out even better ways to protect his family and his home. But will it be enough?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In this story, Adam is the oldest son of John Winchester, born 11 years before his half-brother Dean. I am indebted to [kuwlshadow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuwlshadow/pseuds/kuwlshadow) for her amazing artwork ( **Link coming** ), to onlythefireborn for her patient and thorough beta work, and for Wendy for moderating this bang (and letting me post this three days late!) I don’t deserve any of you!

**_PART ONE:_ **

**//**//**

On any other day, Dean wouldn’t be waiting. He wouldn’t be sitting by the window, sharpening his knife with a whetstone the way Bobby taught him. He wouldn’t be using his sharpened knife to carve wooden figures for little Jo Harvelle to play with. He’d be out riding with his big brother Adam, checking fences and breaking the ice on water troughs and streams, making sure the livestock are fed.

On any other day, Dean wouldn’t be in the house at all, putting up with Jo’s constant whining as she begs him to play with her. He’d never tolerate Jo’s annoying behavior, as she toddles between Dean at the window and her mother at the stove, dragging her cornhusk doll by the hair. Dean would never let himself be cosseted by Jo’s mother, accepting bites of her freshly baked bread with a cup of steaming spiced cider. On any other day, Dean would never let Ellen put her hand on his shoulder and squeeze it gently in sympathy, letting him know that she understands.

On any other day, Dean’s heart wouldn’t be filled with hope and anticipation. He wouldn’t be fidgeting on his stool, wishing he could run out the door and down the lane to the main road with his heart pounding and his palms sweating, breath freezing in the January air. Dean isn’t usually so excitable. He’s been told on more than one occasion that he’s solid, steady, strong and silent, everything a good boy should be. Dean prides himself on his ability to follow orders, to be an obedient and loyal son. Adam’s the wild one, according to their father.

On any other day, Dean wouldn’t be watching the clock on the wall as the minutes drag by, forcing himself to look away and count ten whittles with his knife before glancing back to see that the clock has only ticked another half-minute. On any other day, Dean wouldn’t be passing time this way.

But today is Dean’s ninth birthday, and his father’s coming home.

He’s tried to be patient. When he left, John Winchester promised to be home by Dean’s birthday, and today is the day, the _last_ day, that Dean’s father can make good on that promise.

Ellen’s tried to tell him not to get his hopes up.

“He might not make it, Dean,” she’s reminded him gently, more than once. “The roads are cold and icy this time of year. It might take him longer than he expects.”

But Dean knows his dad will make it this time. He feels it in his bones, as Bobby says when he’s one-hundred-percent sure about a thing. Maybe Dad’s broken a promise or two in the past, but this time, he’ll be here.

It’s early evening, and the light is fading from the overcast sky by the time Dean sees him. At first there’s just a dark shape against the horizon. Then it slowly morphs into the figure of a man on a horse, hat pulled down against the elements. John Winchester is huddled low in the saddle, hunched under a blanket against the cold, and he’s got something bundled against his chest, something he’s holding with one arm while he holds the reins with the other hand.

“He’s here!” Dean scrambles up from his seat, leaving his knife and figure on the table as he dashes to the door.

“Dean! Put your coat on!” Ellen barks, but Dean barely hears her. He’s out the door and running down the lane, hardly feeling the cold in his excitement.

“Hey, Dean,” John says as Dean pulls up short, breathing hard. “I brought you a present.”

He opens the blanket to reveal something small and wiggling, and for a brief moment Dean thinks it’s a puppy. His dad has brought him a puppy for his birthday.

Then the shaggy dark head lifts up to reveal a face. It’s a small boy, Dean realizes, not much bigger than Jo. He’s been sleeping, tucked under the blanket against John’s mountain-man warmth, and he blinks owlishly at Dean, eyes large and dark in his pale face.

“His name’s Sam,” John explains. “He doesn’t talk much. He’s been through some tough times, and I promised to take care of him. Here, Dean. You take him.”

Dean slides up against the horse’s shoulder as John lifts the little boy off his saddle and hands him down. He’s small and thin and sleep-warm, and Dean can feel him stiffen and resist as Dean tries to heft him into his arms.

“It’s okay, Sam,” Dean murmurs. “I got you.”

The boy responds to Dean’s voice by wrapping his arms and legs around him, holding on tightly as he hooks his chin over Dean’s shoulder. Dean looks up at his father, surprised by the easy weight in his arms. He had expected Sam to be heavier.

“He’s yours to look after from now on, Dean,” John intones solemnly. He’s more serious than Dean’s ever seen him, and there’s a haunted look in his eyes.

“Yes, sir.” Dean swallows thickly.

Dean’s so focused on the little boy that he doesn’t notice his brother until Adam is right there, boots crunching on the icy road, wool scarf pulled tight around his neck and chin.

“Dad,” Adam greets their father.

John swings out of the saddle and hands the reins to Adam. “Feed and water her and give her a good rub-down,” he instructs his oldest son as he pats the horse’s flank. “We’ll talk after supper.”

“Whatcha got there, Ugly?” Adam snaps, and Dean hesitates. He doesn’t think Adam will smack him in front of their father, but he wouldn’t put it past him. At nineteen, Adam is big and strong and full of vindictive jealousy towards his younger half-sibling. “Looks like a little gypsy. Dad bring you a gypsy kid for your birthday, Stupid?”

“Adam, do as you’re told,” John orders sharply.

Adam scowls at Dean as John heads towards the house, but he manages a surly, “Yes, sir” as he leads the horse towards the stable. Dean follows his father, carrying Sam. When they reach the porch John stomps the snow and dirt off his boots before stepping inside, and Dean does the same.

“Welcome home, John.” Ellen smiles in that world-weary way of hers as she sets four places at the kitchen table. “Who’s this?”

She reaches out to brush the hair back from Sam’s little face, and Sam flinches away from her, burying his face in the crook of Dean’s neck as he hugs Dean tighter.

“He’s one of Mary’s kids,” John says as he takes his coat off and hangs it on the hook by the door. “His name’s Sam.”

“Another one?” Ellen looks confused, glancing from John to Sam. “But I thought...”

“Yeah, so did I,” John says gruffly, cutting her off. He sits down heavily at the chair by the fire to take off his boots, then pulls out his journal and a pencil from a pocket in his jacket.

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance she’ll come home.” Ellen sets her jaw. “She’s got a kid right here, after all.”

Dean knows they’re talking about him, so he sits down on the stool by the fire, Sam still in his arms.

“She does what she has to.” John’s voice is tight, his meaning clear. He won’t talk about Mary in front of Dean. Dean’s learned not to ask.

“He sure is a scrawny little thing,” Ellen comments. “Doesn’t look like he’s been eating. Or washing. His clothes are filthy.”

“He can have some of my clothes,” Dean offers. Sam hugs him tighter. “There’s a box in my room with clothes that are too small for me. He can have some.”

“I was saving those for Jo,” Ellen says.

Jo hears her name and toddles over, dragging her doll by the hair. She frowns at Sam’s back, puts out her free hand and pokes him.

“ _My_ Dean,” she says, grabbing the back of Sam’s coat as if she means to pull him out of Dean’s arms.

Sam clutches Dean’s shirt, little pointed chin digging into Dean’s shoulder hard enough to bruise. His thighs tighten around Dean’s waist.

“I don’t think Sam’s going anywhere for now,” John says with a tired smile. “You better find somebody else to play with, Jo-Jo.”

Jo plops down on the floor beside Dean’s stool and sticks her fingers in her mouth. Ellen brings over a bowl of steaming chili and a piece of cornbread.

“Let’s see if you can get him to eat something,” she says to Dean.

Lured by the smell of food, Sam lets Dean put him down on the floor next to Jo. He takes the bowl and spoon from Ellen and eats with his body hunched over the food and his arm wrapped around the bowl covetously, like he’s afraid somebody will take it away from him.

“Well, at least he knows how to use a spoon,” Ellen comments as she hands another bowl to Dean.

The door opens and cold night air blows in. The children huddle together with their backs to the fire as Adam stomps into the room. He scowls at the room’s youngest occupants as he takes his place at the table.

“Bobby’s on his way,” he tells his father. John nods as he makes notes in his journal. “Did you kill some monsters today, Dad?”

“Hush,” Ellen scolds. “Not in front of the kids. You can wait to talk about monsters after supper.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Adam pouts, and when he catches Dean’s eye he glares. “What’re _you_ lookin’ at, Ugly?”

“And I’ll thank you to keep your tone civil in this house, Adam Winchester,” Ellen reminds him. “Nobody here is ugly. Or stupid.”

“No, ma’am,” Adam mumbles.

Dean keeps his head down over his bowl to hide his grin. Adam may be able to trip and taunt and whale on Dean when they’re outside, but in the house, Ellen’s rules are clear and ironclad. Even Adam respects her.

The door blows open again, and Bobby Singer comes in, stomping his feet and brushing snow off his hat and coat.

“Started snowing again,” he notes as he takes his place at the table. “Got Paula bedded down in the stable next to General Washington. She’s ready to foal. Could be an all-nighter.”

John nods as he puts his journal away.

“Did you bring home a stray?” Bobby peers at Sam.

Ellen rolls her eyes. “Don’t ask,” she says.

John frowns. “That’s Sam. Mary asked me to bring him here to keep him safe.”

“So we’re running an orphanage now,” Bobby huffs, but Dean can tell he doesn’t mean anything by it. Bobby pretends to be gruff but he’s a real softie at heart, especially where kids and animals are concerned.

The adults bow their heads in prayer over the food. John’s deep voice fills the room.

“Lord, help us always to be grateful for the food we eat, for this warm house and this good company. Let us never take any of it for granted, nor squander the bounty provided here. Help us to be true and strong, to do the work we are meant to do without complaint, and to care for those in need. Amen.”

After supper, Dean helps Ellen clear and wash the dishes. The house was built over a well, so that water could be pumped directly into the kitchen sink, providing a type of makeshift indoor plumbing largely unheard of in Kansas in 1888. The sink is Ellen’s pride and joy, and one of the reasons she had agreed to move into the Winchester home after her husband died.

Sam watches Dean’s every move. Dean can feel his eyes on his back as he works. Jo plays with her doll and a tin cup her mother gave her, all but ignoring Sam. His slanted eyes follow the men as they leave the room to talk hunting in the parlor over whiskey and pipes. He watches as Ellen puts the last of the dishes away, then takes Jo to bed in the little room behind the chimney where she and Jo sleep in the winter.

When they’re alone in the kitchen, Dean smiles at Sam. The boy hasn’t smiled once, hasn’t spoken a word. His eyes are dark in the firelight. Dean can see the flames reflected in them.

“Hey, wanna see what I made today?” Dean grabs the little wooden figures he whittled, smooths a thumb down the front of one. “This one’s the hunter.” He hands it to Sam, who takes it between his grubby little fingers like it’s precious, like it’s made of glass. “And this one’s the monster.” Sam takes the other figure, bulky and crude next to the smoothly whittled hunter. “Hunters kill monsters,” Dean explains.

Sam hands the hunter back to Dean.

“No, you keep it,” Dean says, but Sam shakes his head, clutching the monster to his chest. “You want to keep the monster, huh? You don’t want the hunter? You can have both, you know. I can make more.”

Sam shakes his head, bottom lip sticking out in a little pout.

“Okay,” Dean shrugs, reaching into the woodpile for a small stick. “The monster’s a shapeshifter, so it can turn itself into anything, even a human or a friendly dog. You have to be careful because shapeshifters are clever and crafty. You have to kill it with silver.”

Dean holds the hunter figurine with its stick pressed to its side, pointing at Sam.

“My hunter has a silver sword,” Dean says. “He’s coming to kill the shapeshifter.”

Sam nods, puts the monster figurine on the floor, and pretends to make it stalk the hunter, hiding whenever the hunter turns its way.

“The shapeshifter is clever, but the hunter is smarter,” Dean says. “He knows what he’s doing. He lures the shapeshifter into a trap, then he kills it with a single stab of his sword, right through the heart.”

Sam plays his part, pretending to fall into a trap made of sticks, where Dean’s figure “kills” it with his “sword.”

Sam and Dean exchange looks and Dean grins, triumphant and pleased by Sam’s cooperation. “Now the hunter can rescue the family,” Dean says, and Sam’s eyebrows go up. “Yeah. There’s always victims to rescue. I just haven’t made them yet.”

“Sam can sleep in your bed tonight, Dean,” Ellen says as she returns to the kitchen for coffee and whiskey. She’s clearly anxious to join the men in the other room. “There’s a warming pan in the fire for you, but I didn’t know Sam was coming. He’ll be better off sharing with you anyway, I reckon.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Dean nods.

“You can warm some water for him to wash with,” Ellen goes on. “He looks like he could use a bath, but for tonight just make sure he washes his face and feet before he gets into your nice clean bed. Doesn’t look like he has lice, at least.”

Dean glances at Sam, who has his eyes fixed on the toys, tiny frown furrowing his brow. Dean’s chest fills with warmth and fondness for the boy, nothing like the feeling of annoyed toleration he has for Jo. Sam is his responsibility, and somehow that doesn’t feel like a burden at all. It feels good.

“Don’t stay up much later, now,” Ellen says. “You’ve got chores in the morning.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Dean nods. This winter he’s been assigned kitchen duty almost daily, which mostly means getting up at the crack of dawn to stoke the fire and light the stove. Ellen bakes the day’s bread first thing before breakfast, while Dean milks the cow and collects the eggs from the henhouse.

For the first time, Dean looks forward to his chores. Knowing he’ll have Sam along as company makes them almost seem like fun.

“We’re going to be best friends,” he tells Sam as they snuggle into Dean’s bed later. The warming pan has done its job, and although the room itself is dark and freezing, under the covers the boys huddle in a cocoon of shared heat. “You and me, we’ll do everything together. I’ll teach you everything I know, and you’ll look up to me because I’m like your big brother.”

He thinks about Adam and shakes his head. “Except I’ll be better than a big brother,” he promises. “Big brothers are mean. I’m not gonna be mean to you, Sam. I’m gonna look after you.”

In the wan light from the window, Sam stares silently, big dark eyes fluttering as he gets drowsy. 

Dean watches him until he falls asleep, then he snuggles closer, resting his chin on the top of Sam’s head, listening to the boy’s even breathing as he drifts off to sleep.

**//**//**

Sometime in the night, Dean wakes up to the sounds of arguing voices. John’s voice is low and steady, Adam’s high and whiny.

“If that thing is onto us, we should hunt it!” Adam is saying. “If it killed Mary, it could come after us! We should attack first!”

Uncle Bobby and Aunt Ellen insert short, sharp comments, voices too low for Dean to hear, but Dean’s sure they’re telling Adam to lower his voice.

“I don’t care!” Adam insists. “She was hunting that thing, and it killed her. She knew it was after her family. I’m just saying, we should kill it before it kills us!”

“Enough!” John’s voice booms out. “We don’t know she’s dead.”

“Oh, we know, Dad,” Adam says. “That little boy watched it happen. Hell, maybe he was in on it...”

“Stop!” A loud bang makes Dean jump, and he can almost feel the floor shake. John must’ve slammed his fist down on the table.

“You know I’m right, Dad! You just don’t want to hear it.”

There’s a scuffle, a softer bang as someone is shoved into a wall, probably Adam.

“Settle down, boy!” Uncle Bobby says sharply.

Dean hears another scuffle, then a door slams. Dean lies still, barely daring to breathe, and after a couple of minutes the quiet voices of the three adults resume, and Dean realizes that Adam has probably left the room.

Dean lies awake a few more minutes, but the conversation in the parlor isn’t audible anymore so he snuggles down under the blankets with Sam and dozes off into an uneasy sleep.

**//**//**

Dean was Sam’s age when his mother left, disappeared one night and never came back. John went after her, scared Dean speechless because he was gone so long, but when he came home again he was alone.

“She’s gotta do this thing on her own,” John told Bobby. “That thing killed her parents.”

“So that gives her the right to abandon her son?” Uncle Bobby had hissed, but John cut him off.

“Not talking about this again, Bobby,” John warned. “And you’d best not either. Now I gotta be going. I’ve got sons to raise.”

Dean had pretended to be asleep as John bundled him up for the ride home from Bobby’s house that night. The older man became ranch foreman later that year, and Bill Harvelle and his wife moved into the caretakers’ house down the lane. Bill and Ellen were both experienced hunters, like John, although at the time Dean didn’t understand what it was his father did when he left home for weeks at a time.

“Business,” was the official word, but by the time Dean was six he knew better.

“Monsters,” Adam told him when Dean was still too little to understand. “Dad hunts ‘em and kills ‘em. He’s good at it. The best there is. I’m going with him this year. He promised.”

Adam loved to rub it in that Dean’s mother had left. Adam’s own mother, Kate, had been killed in the line of duty, and John had spent three years tracking down the thing that killed her.

“Dad says you gotta kill the whole family, or else the survivors will come after you and yours for revenge,” Adam explained.

“How do you know he got ‘em all?” Dean asked.

Adam smirked. “You don’t.”

Dean shivered. He knew Adam was trying to scare him, and it worked.

“What if the monsters get you?” Dean asked his father later that week, after he’d had too much time to think about it.

“They won’t,” John assured him. “Don’t you worry, Dean. Monsters are stupid, bloodthirsty killing machines. They don’t think like we do. They’re driven by pure instinct, like animals.”

“What if they come here? While you and Adam and Mr. Harvelle are gone?”

“Then Aunt Ellen and Uncle Bobby will kill them,” John said firmly.

That summer, John taught Dean how to shoot.

By Dean’s ninth birthday, he was able to handle most of the daily chores on the ranch as well as shoot an apple off a fencepost at twenty-five yards.

**//**//**

When Dean gets up the next morning, the sun has already peeked its cold, orange light over the horizon, making gray shadows in the white snow of the farmyard. Dean scrambles out of bed and into his clothes, leaving Sam sleeping as he dashes into the kitchen.

The fire is burning bright, and the stove floods the room with warmth and the smell of baking bread. Ellen stands at the stove, stirring the lentil stew for lunch. It’ll simmer on the stove for hours, filling the house with more good smells.

Later in life, long after the comforts of hearth and home are forgotten, Dean will remember this smell and the feel of the warm air of the kitchen on a cold January morning. Sense memories are always the strongest.

“Where’s Dad?” Dean hears the panic in his voice, feels his heart pounding frantically in his chest.

Ellen lifts an eyebrow. She turns away from the stove to lay a crust of bread on Jo’s high chair tray. “Well look who decided to get up,” she teases.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Ellen, I really am,” Dean gushes as he pulls his boots on and struggles to tie them with fingers stiff with cold. “You should’ve woke me up.”

“Yeah, well, your Dad figured you needed your rest,” Ellen says. “Both of you. Little Sammy’s been through a lot.” Ellen’s eyes flick away from Dean, and Dean gets the feeling there’s something she’s not telling him. He remembers what he heard last night.

Dean pushes that memory aside in the face of his more immediate concern. “Dad didn’t leave, did he?”

“No, honey, he’s just out in the barn with Uncle Bobby. Paula’s foal was born last night, and you’ll never guess what?” Ellen winks, obviously relieved to change the subject.

Dean’s heart races with excitement. A new foal! Dad had promised this one would be his. “What?” He finishes tying his boots and leaps up, ready to grab his coat and head out to the stable. “Is it a colt?”

“It’s twins,” Ellen says triumphantly. “Two little fillies. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Twins?” Dean frowns.

“Sure, honey. One for each of you. You boys are sure gonna have your hands full next summer. Hey, where do you think you’re going?” Ellen’s voice sharpens, making Dean stop short. Sam stands in the doorway, hair mussed around his little face, eyes wide. He’s wearing the oversized shirt and trousers Dean gave him to sleep in last night, rolled up at the ankles and wrists. “You’re not gonna leave him with me, are you?”

“No, of course not!” Dean huffs. “Come on, Sam. Let’s get you dressed so you can come out to the barn with me. The old mare had twins!”

**//**//**

By the time Sam gets dressed in an old shirt and pants that Dean outgrew years ago, fits him with a pair of his own suspenders so the pants don’t fall off, then finds socks that don’t slide off Sam’s small feet and mittens that don’t fall off his little hands, nearly half an hour has passed. Dean bundles the boy into his coat and boots, wraps a scarf around his neck, and slams an old felt hat on his head, standing back to admire his handiwork for a moment before nodding his satisfaction. Sam’s covered and protected against the cold as well as he’ll ever be.

The newborn horses are both unusually small and weak. Bobby’s feeding one with a bottle when Dean gets to the barn, Sam in tow. One of the fillies has a dark coat; the other one is pale yellow with spots on her flank like a newborn fawn. Dean knows without thinking very deeply about it that she’s his. He slides onto his knees in the hay next to the little horse, and she lifts her head, gives him a clear-eyed look before sniffing the hand he puts under her muzzle. Her nose is soft. It tickles his palm and makes him grin.

“Is she gonna be okay?” he asks.

Bobby nods as he pulls the bottle away from the other foal and hands it to Dean with a nod. “They’re both fine. You want to feed her?”

“Yeah!” Dean takes the bottle, holds the foal’s chin with one hand and rubs the nipple of the bottle across her lips. She’s clearly used to it already, opens up right away and starts sucking, making Dean laugh at how strong and eager she is.

“Goddamn miracle is what it is,” Bobby mumbles as he helps the other foal stand on wobbly legs. “Hey, kid. You wanna come say hello?”

Dean looks up at Sam, who stands in the entrance to the stall, arms hanging helplessly by his sides. His eyes widen at Bobby’s offer, and he nods eagerly.

“How’s Paula?” Dean asks with a frown, glancing around the barn. There’s John’s horse, the big plow horses, Bobby’s and Ellen’s mares, and Adam’s gelding, all in their stalls, freshly fed and watered. Dean’s chores have been done. Adam will never let him live this down.

“She didn’t make it,” Bobby says as he helps Sam take off his mittens. “Your dad and Adam are taking care of her carcass.”

Dean’s eyes fill with tears. Paula had been his horse, his first mount. She’d always been a steady, good-tempered animal who tolerated kids well. Both he and Adam had learned to ride on her.

“She was old, son,” Bobby says as he shows Sam how to pet the newborn horse. “She never should’ve been bred.”

A wild stallion captured Paula last year. It had taken Bobby and Adam nearly three months to find her, and when they brought her home she was already carrying the foals.

“Twins is rare,” Bobby goes on. “It took a lot out of her. She might not have made it even if there’d only been one, but two foals at once was just too much for her.”

Dean nods, fighting the lump in his throat. Milk runs down the filly’s chin, down Dean’s arm.

“They’ll need all the goat’s milk they can drink over the next few weeks,” Bobby says. “Think you two can help with that?”

“Yes, sir,” Dean says, swallowing hard.

“No cow’s milk,” Bobby instructs. “Cow’s milk’s not good for ‘em, not like it is for you and me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If they survive, in six weeks we’ll give them names,” Bobby says. “You two best be thinking about what you want to name them.”

Dean’s filly finishes the bottle and butts her head against Dean’s chest for more. Dean smiles through his tears, and when he glances at Sam the little boy’s eyes widen in sympathy.

“Death and birth, boys,” Bobby says. “That’s the natural order of things. Never forget that.”

Dean nods. “Yes, sir.”

“Now grab that bucket and start milking.”

**//**//**

Later that morning, when they’re back in the house with Ellen while the men have gone out to check the livestock, Dean makes an effort to focus on his lessons, but it’s not easy. His head is swimming with the events of the last twenty-four hours, and he can’t stop trying to make sense of them.

After a few minutes of staring at his slate and getting nowhere with the arithmetic problem he’s been assigned, Dean sighs. He glances over to be sure Sam and Jo are busy playing in front of the hearth, then lowers his voice to a whisper.

“Aunt Ellen, what happened to Sam’s mom?”

Ellen’s lips tighten and she frowns at the pan of potatoes she’s peeling. At first Dean thinks she won’t answer. Then she says, “We don’t know for sure. We think she died in a fire in Topeka.”

“Was – was Mom there?” Dean feels his voice shake. He’s heard enough about his mother since she left to know that Mary’s a superhero, a special kind of hunter whose specialty is rescuing children.

 _“It’s how she atones for leaving her son,”_ Bobby said one night years ago, in this very room, when he thought Dean was asleep. Dean never forgot, although he didn’t understand Bobby’s words at the time. He absorbs every word ever spoken about his mother, won’t ever forget her soft voice or the way her hair curtained her face when she leaned down to kiss him goodnight.

Dean knows he did something wrong to make her leave. He just wishes he could remember what it was. Then maybe he can find a way to convince her to come home.

“Your mother saved Sam,” Ellen says. “She got him out of that burning building and gave him to your dad to take care of.”

“Where did she go?”

Ellen shakes her head, and Dean can see tears in her eyes. “She ran back into the fire to try to rescue more kids,” she says. “That’s the way she was. Is. That’s the way she is.”

“She’s dead, isn’t she?” Dean fights the lump in his throat. “She never made it out.”

“We don’t know that, Dean,” Ellen says. “Your dad believes she survived. He thinks she’s still out there, doing what she does best, and his instincts tend to be pretty good where your mother’s concerned.” She shakes her head, clenches her jaw. She peels the potatoes more aggressively. “I don’t know how he stands it, frankly.”

Dean imagines his mother, backlit by a building in flames, holding little Sam or some other small child in her arms, doing the job that keeps her away from her son.

He feels a single tear sliding down his cheek, wipes it away quickly with the back of his hand as he gets back to work.

**//**//**

By the end of the week, John’s gone again. He takes Adam with him this time, and Adam is insufferably proud of himself for being chosen to accompany his dad on a hunting trip, this one to take down a wandering gang of werewolves.

“He’ll never take you hunting,” he sneers at Dean. “You’re too stupid.”

“Am not!” Dean shouts, finally losing his temper.

“Are too!” Adam cuffs him, sending him flying into the barn wall. Adam’s been saddling his horse while Sam and Dean feed their foals. “You’re nothing but a stupid, ugly brat! That’s why your mom left. She couldn’t stand you. Nobody loves you!”

Before Dean can pick himself up, Sam launches himself at Adam, small fists flying. Adam swats the boy like he’s nothing but an annoying fly, splitting his lip in the process.

“Get away from me, you little creep,” Adam sneers. “You’re worse than him. Your mother was a whore! You should’ve died in that fire.”

“You leave him alone!” Dean yells, scrambling toward Sam. Something cracks inside him when he sees the blood on Sam’s lip, sees him lying dazed on the floor. His vision blurs, and his hands shake.

“What are you going to do about it?” Adam grabs Dean by the back of his jacket and lifts him off the floor, away from Sam. “You gonna fight me? Huh? Think you can take me? Stupid, ugly little freak.”

Adam pulls his fist back and Dean braces himself for the hit, knows it’s coming because Adam’s done it before, barely seems to be able to stop himself. Dean doesn’t really get it, why Adam hates him so much. He just knows that he does.

But apparently it’s not his day to die after all. Through the throbbing in his head, Dean hears the barn door bang open, and Bobby’s voice booms out.

“What the hell’s going on in here? Adam, put your brother down! For God’s sake, kid, what’s the matter with you? Go pick on somebody your own size!”

Adam growls, but obeys, letting Dean down none too easy, so that he stumbles backwards and falls flat on his ass on the dusty floor. He glances over to be sure Sam’s okay, then up at Bobby, frowning at him from several feet away.

“Your dad’s been looking for you, Adam,” Bobby says. “He’s ready to go.”

Adam nods, clenching his fists as he throws a final glare at Dean. “This ain’t over,” he hisses as he grabs his horse’s bridle and leads it past Bobby and out the barn door.

**//**//**

“He’s too hotheaded,” Bobby tells Dean later, after John and Adam have left and Dean’s mucking out stalls. “John doesn’t usually take him because he doesn’t trust him. Don’t tell him I said so, but Adam has a temper that could get a man killed. Not exactly the levelheaded partner your dad needs on a hunt.”

“So why did Dad take him?” Dean asks.

“He’s trying to train him,” Bobby says. “Adam needs the practice, and werewolves are easy prey. Loud, messy, stupid. Adam can let out some of that pent-up anger on ‘em and maybe learn a thing or two at the same time.”

“Someday, I’ll be Dad’s partner,” Dean declares, and Bobby smiles.

“You’ll make a good hunter someday, Dean,” he says. “You’re steady. Plus, you’ve got an instinct for people, how to get along with ‘em, how to read ‘em. You’ll make a good partner for somebody someday, whether it’s your dad or not.”

Dean’s chest fills with warmth at the praise. He isn’t worthy of his father’s approval, but he’s grateful for Bobby’s. Every time John leaves on a hunt Dean feels a little less worthy, a little more like the useless son, the one John always leaves behind. He believes Adam’s taunts just a little more each time John goes.

Bobby helps with that, eases some of the worthlessness in Dean’s gut.

“Why does Adam hate me so much, Uncle Bobby?”

He thinks he knows. He thinks it’s because Adam knows him better than he knows himself, that Adam knows how worthless he feels inside. Maybe John said something about Dean to Adam behind his back, something bad.

“Aw, Dean, he doesn’t hate you,” Bobby says. “He’s just a jackass kid who can’t get enough of his dad’s attention, so he takes it out on his little brother. He’d be the same way no matter who his little brother is. It’s got nothin’ to do with you personally.”

Dean thinks about that for a minute as he shovels the shit out of General Washington’s stall. He remembers when Paula gave birth to G.W. five years before, remembers John telling Adam the horse would be his if he could break him. Now G.W. was a full-grown gelding, Adam’s horse, and his ticket to riding out with their dad when John needed backup.

Just as Dean’s filly would one day be his.

**//**//**

With constant care and attention, the twins survive their first six weeks. The snow is melting and the ground softening for spring planting when Bobby declares both foals fully viable.

“Achilles and Petrochlus,” Dean says when Ellen asks what he’s chosen to name his horse. They’ve been reading Homer, and Dean’s mind is filled with stories of valor and epic battles. “They were best friends, just like me and Sam.”

Ellen nods. “Okay,” she says. “But those are boy names. Don’t you want to give them girl names?”

Dean thinks about that for a minute, then he shakes his head. “Artemis and Aphrodite were jerks,” he says firmly. “They made the Trojan War happen in the first place. They made Troy fall and killed all those humans out of petty jealousy.”

“I suppose you could look at it that way,” Ellen agrees.

“How about Remus and Romulus?” Dean suggests. “They were twins and they founded Rome. Also, they were raised by wolves.”

Ellen opens her mouth, and Dean thinks she’s about to protest, but then she shakes her head and smiles instead. “All right, Dean. Remus and Romulus it is. But which is which?”

“My horse can be Remus,” Dean says. “He’s the oldest.”

Ellen shrugs. “If you say so,” she says dubiously. “But you know the story, right? Things don’t end well for those two.”

“They were heroes,” Dean says, as if that’s all that matters.

And, of course, it is.

**//**//**

By the end of April, John and Adam still haven’t returned, although a traveling hunter named Caleb arrives on horseback, bearing a letter from John saying he and Adam were tracking something and would be back by the spring planting.

“Yeah, well, we’ll see about that,” Bobby mutters as he tosses another hay bale to Dean. The colts are eating normally now, and Dean takes them out one by one for exercise in the corral while Sam watches, still too little to be very helpful. He waits until Dean brings the colts back into the stable, ready with a brush and a lump of sugar. Romulus seems to know she belongs to Sam. She follows him around the barn, nudging him for another lump of sugar, making Sam giggle.

It’s still the only sound Sam makes, but Dean’ll take it. Sam’s so silent and solemn most of the time, especially around anyone but Dean, that Dean’s favorite moments are the times he and Sam are alone together. At night in bed, Dean tells stories to help Sam fall asleep. He loves the way the little boy’s eyes watch him, rapt and trusting. During the day, Sam follows him out to the barn, helps him milk the cow and gather the eggs. After study time the boys are free to spend the afternoon in the stable with the foals. It quickly becomes Dean’s favorite time of day.

Sam continues to be so shy around Ellen and Bobby that Dean gets a little irritated with him. 

“He’s smart,” he tells Ellen one morning when he’s doing his studies at the kitchen table. “He can read already.”

“Oh, I doubt that.” Ellen looks up from her potato-peeling to glance at Sam, playing quietly on the floor with Jo. “He can’t be more than five years old.”

Dean nods quickly, pride swelling in his chest. “He can! I caught him reading my _Tales of the Round Table_ yesterday, and when I asked him about it, he answered everything I asked, just perfect.”

“Oh honey, he just listens to you read out loud,” Ellen says. “He soaks up everything you do like a little sponge.”

“No, Aunt Ellen, it’s more than that,” Dean insists. “When I pointed to words and asked him, he got it right every time.”

“He talks to you?” Ellen frowns.

“Kinda,” Dean shrugs. “I mean, I understand him. Sometimes I get an idea and when I look at Sam, I can tell he’s thinking the same thing.”

Ellen’s frown deepens for a moment. She puts her hands in her lap and gazes at Sam, eyes narrowing. She seems to be speculating, wondering silently about Sam. Then she shakes her head and goes back to peeling potatoes.

“He’ll start talking when he needs to,” she says, as much to herself as to Dean. “Boy’s been through a lot. One of these days, he’ll learn to trust us enough. It’ll be good to have another set of hands around this place.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

**//**//**

It’s almost two years before Sam starts talking.

John’s been home three times during that time, twice in the middle of winter, once in the early fall. He never made it for spring planting that first year, just as Bobby had predicted.

“I almost found her, Bobby.” Dean overhears Ellen and the men talking after supper during John’s first visit home that fall. “She was just one step ahead of me. Some hunters in Rapid City remembered her. She rode through with a ragtag group of kids, all hunters-in-training. It was her, Bobby, I swear. She’s moved on from shelters for little kids to training camps for older ones.”

“You don’t know that, John,” Bobby protests.

“I know _her_ , Bobby. It’s what she does. Gathers abandoned and orphaned kids, protects them. Now she’s teaching them to protect themselves.”

“What’s your evidence? Huh?” Bobby says. “You found any of these training camps?”

“She keeps them moving,” John growls. “It’s part of her strategy. Teaching them how to cover their tracks, stay out of sight.”

“You don’t know that!” Bobby sounds irritated. “You can’t prove any of this. You’re just chasing after a phantom. Mary Winchester died in that fire last year, and you know it. Now stop running from your own guilt and come home. Your family needs you!”

A loud crash makes Dean jump. Sam stirs beside him but then goes on sleeping.

“I’ll thank you to keep your opinions to yourself, Bobby Singer.” John’s voice is low and menacing. “I almost had her. She left Rapid City barely six hours ahead of us. If we hadn’t been attacked by that shapeshifter in the saloon, we would’ve caught up with her.”

“Well, at least you had the good sense to bring your son home where he can get decent medical care,” Ellen says. “There’s still a brain cell or two working in that bullheaded skull of yours.”

“Adam will be fine,” John says. “He’ll just need a week or two to recover. I’ll come back for him in a month.”

“Wait. What? You’re leaving?” Bobby’s incredulous.

“First thing in the morning.”

And, true to his word, John’s up and out again almost before Dean has a chance to say goodbye.

“Take care of that little boy for me, Dean,” John admonishes as Dean stands helplessly by while John swings himself into his saddle the next morning. “You’re all he’s got.”

“Yes, sir.” Dean blinks back tears. He’d been so excited the night before when John rode in, leading Adam’s horse by the reins. Adam sat slumped in the saddle, bleeding and broken in several places, barely coherent through his pain and the whiskey John had given him to ease it.

“I’ll be back before the first snow falls,” John promises, and Dean nods because it’s all he can do.

Adam’s a terrible patient. He’s bedridden for the first week, resentful and pissed off at everyone for being wounded, for being left behind while his father went back out into the field alone.

“He should’ve waited for me!” Adam complains to anyone who will listen. “Those sons a’ bitches are everywhere! Shapeshifters can be anybody. He needs my help!”

“Now, that’s enough, Adam Winchester,” Ellen scolds. “You need to lie quiet now.”

When he notices Dean hovering in the doorway, Adam scowls. “This is all your fault, Ugly,” he snarls, vicious. “Your mother makes him crazy. If he wasn’t so blinded by his obsession to find her, he wouldn’t keep almost getting himself killed. I hope to God she is dead, cuz if she ain’t, I’m gonna kill her!”

“Adam, that’s enough! This ain’t Dean’s fault, and you know it.”

“Uncle Bobby, is my mother...Did she die?” Dean asks later. He can’t help it.

They’re in the barn, checking on the animals after the previous night’s snowfall. “We don’t know, son. Your daddy thinks she’s alive.”

“What do _you_ think?”

“Your mother is one of the toughest hunters I ever met,” Bobby says. “Smart, too. If anyone could’ve survived the fire that night, it’s her.”

“Then why don’t she come home?”

“It’s complicated.” Bobby sighed. “Your mama does what she does because she thinks she has to protect everybody, especially kids. Especially _you_ kids. She’s trying to keep you safe.”

“So why doesn’t she let Dad help her?”

Bobby shook his head. “That’s complicated, too, son, and I don’t rightly know the answer. I reckon she’s trying to protect him, too.”

Dean wonders about that. It doesn’t make him feel any better about her absence, but it paints a picture in his mind of his mother as a kind of she-bear protecting her mate and cubs, and Dean can live with that.

Barely.


	2. Chapter 2

_**PART TWO:** _

It’s deep winter by the time John gets back, long after the first snowfall, not to mention the second and the third. Adam’s not even limping anymore. He’s been taking out his boredom and frustration on Dean, beating up on him whenever Dean gets in his way, threatening to shoot the foals, which are yearlings now. Sam stands in a corner of the stable and stares at Adam when he says that, and Adam backs down.

“Fuckin’ freak,” Adam mutters as he holsters his gun. He stumbles drunkenly out of the stable, and Dean runs his tongue over his split lip.

John arrives within the week, the day before Dean’s tenth birthday. This time he stays a couple of days, gives the children candy sticks, tells them watered down hunting stories in front of the fire.

“It’s getting worse out there,” he tells the adults after supper. Dean huddles in his bed, blankets pulled up to his chin, Sam snuggled warm against his back. “The monster population has grown. They’re going after whole towns now, not just isolated families. We need all the help we can get.”

Sam snuggles closer, and Dean knows he can hear just as well as Dean can.

 

“Don’t worry, Sammy,’ Dean whispers as he turns over, pulling the little boy into the warm space where his body lay. “I won’t let anything happen to you. This ranch is warded, so no monsters can come here. I promise. They can’t get you.”

Sam’s eyes widen and glisten in the near-darkness.

**//**//**

Spring comes early that year, and the boys spend every free moment outside. They explore the valleys and hills, follow the creek. They collect tadpoles and crawdads, keep skippers in a jar. Dean punches holes in the lids so the things they catch can breathe. They always let them go, after they’ve spent the afternoon observing them in the shade of the big cedar tree.

Their exploration takes them to the edges of the farm, where last year’s fields lie fallow so the soil can grow rich again for next year’s crop. At 10, Dean can help with the harvest, just like he helps with the farmstead. But he hates it because it takes him away from the person he’s supposed to be watching. He takes his role as Sam’s protector very seriously, since the order came directly from his father, passed on from his mother.

In the fall, Bobby says it’s time to train the foals. They’re almost two years old now, and Bobby thinks they’re ready to carry the boys on their backs.

Dean doesn’t have to be told twice. He’s already put a rope halter on Remus, letting the young horse get comfortable with the feel of it around her muzzle. He lets the rope out several feet and watches her trot around the corral, calling out commands as he’s seen Bobby do. She loves him, he can see it in the way she bats her eyelashes at him and snuffles against his shoulder when he brushes her.

Sam watches from his perch on the fence. He’s too little to help with the horse training, but he takes it all in, silent as always, hooded multi-colored eyes boring into Dean’s back when he turns away. Sam loves him, Dean can tell. He’s probably the only thing Sam loves, besides Romulus, but he doesn’t think too much about that.

John and Adam return for Dean’s eleventh birthday. They stay for over a month. This time, it’s John who’s been injured. Dean gets a glimpse of the wounds on his father’s back and chest one afternoon when he helps Ellen change his dressings, and John decides it’s as good a time as any for Dean to learn a thing or two about field medicine.

“The main thing is keeping the wounds clean,” John instructs as Ellen pulls off the old bandages, soaked in blood. Five long gashes slice the skin on John’s right side, under his arm. Ellen dabs the gaping wounds with a mixture of rubbing alcohol, witch hazel, and aloe, and Dean flinches in sympathy when John hisses at the pain. “We used to use bacon grease for a salve. Not good. War’s not good for much, but it taught us a few things about how to care for wounded soldiers.”

“Yes, sir.” Dean nods, moves closer to watch as Ellen starts to wrap the wounds in clean linen.

“You see this?” John points to the bruises over his ribcage. “Thing broke a rib when it grabbed me. That’s on the inside, and any internal bleeding can’t be stopped. Never let a surgeon tell you otherwise. Those bastards are butchers.”

Dean watches wide-eyed, as Ellen lays her hands over John’s ribcage and chants something quietly in Latin.

“Hunters have special skills,” John says. “Spells to knit broken bones, heal internal injuries. You learn a few basic healing spells, make those part of your arsenal, same as your weapons. It takes patience to learn, but it’ll save your life or somebody else’s in the field.”

“Yes, sir.” Dean nods. John smiles grimly as Ellen finishes wrapping his ribs, winding the linen around his body, over the freshly-dressed claw marks.

“I can’t get Adam to pay attention to spell-learning,” he says. “He’s too hotheaded and impatient. But your mother is a hell of a healer, Dean. You’ve got healing in your blood.”

Dean nods, the lump in his throat making it impossible to speak. 

“He’s a little young to be learning how to heal war wounds, don’t you think?” Ellen chides gently.

“Never too young to learn vital survival skills,” John says. “It’s a dangerous world out there. Someday, I’ll be gone. I want my boys to be prepared for anything.”

“Well, I guess we can add a little Latin learning to our morning lessons,” Ellen says, glancing at Dean. “You’d be up for that, wouldn’t you, Dean?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

**//**//**

The best thing about the next month is that John’s home.

As he recovers, John spends time in the kitchen with the children, regaling them with stories, drilling Dean on his spell learning as the snow falls outside. In addition to healing spells, Dean memorizes warding spells, binding spells, protection spells. He learns the difference between white and black magic, ways to connect with the natural energy in every living thing, and to conjure the dormant energy in nonliving things. He memorizes the chant to exorcize a demon.

“Not that you’ll ever need that,” Bobby grumbles when Dean shows him what he’s learning one evening. “In all my years as a hunter, I’ve never heard tell of a demon in these parts.”

“It never hurts to be prepared,” Ellen says as she puts a bowl of steaming chili in front of him. “Like John said.”

Sam watches. His lips move silently as Dean recites each new spell and incantation, as Dean studies Latin. He’s pretty sure the little boy’s learning, too.

The worst thing about the next month is being cooped up in the house with Adam. As always, Adam resents him. Hates him. Picks on him and hurts him every chance he gets, whether it’s a pinch or a kick under the table during supper, or a cuff on the ear when he moves too close. Dean gets up extra early each morning to do his chores, hoping Adam won’t follow him out to the barn where he can beat on Dean without anyone there to stop him.

As it is, Dean’s so cautious around Adam it’s exhausting. He schedules his days to avoid John Winchester’s oldest son. The older boy drinks every night, so he’s usually passed out long into the morning. Dean stays out of Adam’s way as much as possible during the day, helping out in the kitchen with Ellen and the kids in the afternoon while Adam, John, and Bobby ride the perimeter, checking on the cattle, resetting the warding spells around the ranch.

It’s not that Dean’s afraid. He’s no coward. He’s been taking regular beatings from his older brother for years and never complained. But Dean’s seen the look in Sam’s eyes when it happens, something fierce and dangerous far beyond his years. It sends shivers up Dean’s spine, makes him think of the gunslingers who’ve stopped in once or twice over the years. Assassins who took on the hunting life to give them a legal reason to do the one thing they were good at, the thing they most liked to do. Those men were stone cold killers, and making someone or something suffer before death wasn’t ever not part of the job.

Sam looks like he wants to kill Adam, and do it slowly.

Luckily, Adam never seems to notice the small boy with his mop of dark hair. At best, he sometimes swats Sam irritably out of the way in the kitchen once in a while, barely glancing at him, never speaking to him.

Dean’s just fine with that. After that first encounter in the barn two years before, Dean isn’t looking to let Sam into Adam’s sights ever again.

Because he avoids the barn while Adam’s awake, Dean and Sam spend many long, wintery daylight hours in the attic. It’s cold, but not freezing since it’s over the kitchen, and no one knows they’re there. Dean carves enough soldiers for two armies, and Sam practices killing monsters with the monster and hunter figurines Dean made for him. They watch the sun set and the sky darken from the attic window, and Dean feels almost happy, despite the claustrophobia of being confined to the house so much of the day. In their own little world, mostly silent except for Dean’s murmured orders to his imaginary soldiers, the boys nurture a dream of becoming great hunters one day. Dean will follow in his dad’s footsteps, Sam will follow Dean, and together they’ll stop all the evil, fix everything, avenge all the motherless children.

By the first of March, John’s well enough to ride out again. There’s still a foot of snow on the ground, but John’s restless.

“The longer I hide out here, the colder the trail gets,” he tells Bobby. “I gotta find her.”

“Any chance she’ll come home if you do?” Bobby asks in that skeptical way that sounds like he already knows the answer.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” John says.

He reminds Dean to keep practicing the wrestling moves he taught him. “Self-defense is essential when you’re half the size of the things that come after you. Even Sam can learn a few moves, as little as he is.”

‘Yes, sir.” But Dean doesn’t want Sam to learn to protect himself by kicking some monster in the balls or shoving his little fingers into the monster’s eyes. Dean can do that. Dean will always do whatever it takes to protect Sam.

As Dean watches John and Adam ride away that wintery morning, he doesn’t know it’s the last time he’ll see his dad. He doesn’t even have a foreshadowing. He’ll always wonder if he could’ve done something differently, Maybe he could’ve convinced his dad to stay just a little longer.

He doesn’t know it that day, but his childhood days are numbered.

**//**//**

In the spring, Dean works with Romulus, just as he did in the fall with Remus. Bobby shows him how to acclimate both horses to the feel of a saddle and bridle. The twins are almost two-and-a-half, ready to be broken.

“We can’t let it go much longer,” Bobby explains. “They’re big enough to bear a man now. If they grow much older, they’ll start to go wild. As it is, they’re used to us. Used to you. Think you’re ready to ride your filly, Dean?”

“Oh yeah,” Dean nods. He and Sam watch from the fence as Bobby saddles and bridles Romulus, then climbs on. The horse is still for a moment. Then she seems to understand that the weight on her back is heavier than usual and isn’t going anywhere, so she lets loose with a series of bucks and twists that go on and on. She sidles into the fence, pivots as if she’s chasing her own tail, whinnies and snorts and tosses her head as Bobby holds on, grim-faced and determined.

When she finally stops, Romulus is breathing hard, her coat slick with sweat. Bobby holds her steady as he climbs off, then removes her saddle and bridle and lets Sam brush her down.

Then he does the same thing with Remus.

In the afternoon, the boys take both fillies out to the pasture above the creek, which is mostly fenced. They ride bareback with only a halter, wild and free and sloppy, tumbling off into the soft grass when they’ve had enough. The horses graze nearby as the boys lie on the grass and stare at the sky, watching the puffy spring clouds drift by on the winds high up where they can’t feel them. Down here on Earth the soil smells rich and pungent, warmed by the sun.

“Today’s my birthday.”

Dean turns his head at the unfamiliar voice, stares at Sam, who lies still another moment before turning his head to stare back. His lips are parted, and when he sees the look on Dean’s face he grins, dimples showing.

“What?”

“It’s my birthday.” Sam’s voice is small and high and childish, hoarse from misuse. “I’m seven.” 

**//**//**

“Sam can talk!” Dean tells Ellen when they get back to the house. Sam hasn’t said anything since that moment in the pasture, but Dean’s so proud he has to share.

Yet even as he tells Ellen, half of him wishes he’d kept the news to himself. Dean’s used to being Sam’s interpreter, translating his gestures and expressions to the adults, and he doesn’t want to give that up. He wants to go on having Sam all to himself.

Ellen looks up from her work. “Really now?” She turns a skeptical eye on Sam, who shakes his head and blushes.

“He says today’s his birthday,” Dean nods. “He’s seven.”

“Well, happy birthday, Sam,” Ellen says. “Now, you two go wash up for supper. I need your help.”

They’re in the back pasture the following week, practicing wrestling moves in the shade of the big cedar tree while the horses graze nearby. Sam’s getting bigger, but he’s still scrawny, easy to pin, not really much of a wrestler yet. Dean gives up after a few minutes and just starts rolling around with the smaller boy in the grass, grabbing handfuls of Sam’s skinny ribs through his shirt, making him giggle and laugh till he’s almost gasping.

“Stop! Dean! Stop!” He chokes out between giggles, and Dean lets him go immediately.

“Did you just tell me to stop?” he demands. Sam lies on his back, breathing hard, eyes sparkling and dimples showing as he stares up at Dean. When he nods, Dean shakes his head. “Oh no. You gotta say the words! Say the words, Sam! Come on! Talk again!”

“No! No! Uncle! Okay, Dean, okay!” Sam chokes the words out on another gale of laughter as Dean resumes his tickling. He lets up as Sam gets the words out, collapsing on the grass next to the younger boy with a whoop of triumph.

“You better keep talking,” Dean warns, grinning wildly, triumphant. “You stop, I just might have to start tickling you again. You hear me?”

Sam nods, then says “Yeah” when Dean frowns at him.

“Promise?”

“Yeah, I promise.” Sam nods.

“I mean, it’s not like you need to talk all the time or anything,” Dean says. “The last thing I need is a little brother who chatters at me all the time.”

“Am I? Your little brother?” Sam seems so pleased, so hopeful, that Dean can’t keep from grinning wide again.

“‘Course you are, Sammy,” he says. “In every way that matters, you’re a Winchester.”

Sam frowns, thoughtful. “Don’t wanna be a Winchester,” he says. “Just wanna be your brother.”

Dean’s chest swells and his eyes sting. Sam belongs to _him,_ not anybody else. Dad gave him to Dean. The thought of sharing him, even with his family, makes Dean’s skin feel hot and tight with jealousy.

“You’re more than my brother,” Dean says, thinking of Adam. “My brother’s a dick. You’re my best friend.”

“Yeah,” Sam nods.

“We got made by the same piece of cosmic dust,” Dean goes on. He’s been studying astronomy in his science book, so the words come naturally. “Everything comes from the stars, but you and me were made from the same star.”

“Yeah,” Sam agrees. They gaze at each for another minute, and Dean’s so happy it scares him. He’s afraid he’ll never be this happy again.

Dean pulls Sam to his feet and races him across the pasture, dodging cow patties and gopher holes. They catch the horses and ride them along the creek bank to their favorite swimming hole, leave their clothes and shoes on the big rock where they lie to dry off after their swim. By the time they get dressed and ride home, the sun is sinking toward the western horizon and Sam’s still talking, responding mostly in monosyllables as Dean tells him about his latest science lesson.

Sam doesn’t talk to anyone else. He smiles shyly at Ellen when Dean tells her Sam was talking again, but that’s as far as it goes.

“He’ll talk to us when he’s ready,” Ellen says, and Sam looks grateful. 

After supper, Dean reads out loud from _The Arabian Nights_ as Jo and Sam sit rapt on the rug in front of the fire. Dean’s not the best reader, but with two sets of adoring eyes focused on him, he feels like a genius.

**//**//**

At age five, Jo is a complete pain in Dean’s ass. She tags along everywhere Sam and Dean go. She hangs onto Dean’s coattails when he heads outside, struggling to keep up, sitting down in the lane and crying when she can’t. Sam has no patience for her, but Dean won’t tolerate her tears.

“Aw, Jo-Jo, come on,” he coaxes. “If you can’t keep up, you should just go home. Me and Sam have stuff to do.”

Jo dries her tears with dusty palms, pulls herself up, and doggedly trails along behind them. Dean shrugs when Sam gives him an annoyed look, ignores Sam’s disgusted huff. Ellen’s all the mother Dean’s had for the past seven years, and he knows he owes it to her to look after Jo. Sam can just deal with it.

Jo wears Dean’s hand-me-down overalls, rolled up at the ankles to expose her bare shins. She hates to wear shoes in the summer, and her little brown feet are scuffed and calloused. Her blond hair bleaches almost white in the summer sun, and she resembles a little brown and white spirit as she traipses after the boys, determined and defiant. Dean’s almost as fond of her as he is exasperated.

Nevertheless, she’s an easy target. When they find a cave near the swimming hole, Dean dares Jo to go in to see if there’s a bear inside, knowing full well there isn’t. She does it, of course, determined jaw locked and fists clenched against her terror, and when a colony of bats flies out, she’s the only one who stands her ground as Dean and Sam run screaming down the hill. When they reach the bottom, Dean turns around to see Jo standing at the cave mouth, her small body framed in sunlight, looking for all the world like one of the fierce goddesses from Dean’s Greek mythology book.

“You did good today, Jo-Jo,” he tells her when they start for home, walking slowly so Jo can keep up.

Sam scowls and runs on ahead, kicking rocks out of the way of their path, making them fly and bounce like bullets.

Jo basks in the praise, sidles up to Dean, and doesn’t leave his side till they’re back inside the house, where her mother chastises her for being a dirty ragamuffin.

“Bath day isn’t till Saturday, and you’re already caked in a month’s worth of dirt.”

Jo beams, sharing a quick glance with Dean that makes Dean grin.

“Sorry, Aunt Ellen,” he says. “It was my fault. I asked her to check out a cave by the swimming hole, and she was braver than I thought she’d be.”

“Well, just so you’re watching out for her, Dean,” Ellen says. “I’m counting on you, you know.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

That night, Sam turns his back on Dean as he gets undressed for bed, slides into his side of the bed as close to the far edge as possible, and lies still and stiff as a board.

Dean gets into the other side of the bed and breathes deep, feeling the tension radiate from Sam’s small body.

“You’re always gonna be my best friend,” he says softly. “Jo’s just a little kid. I gotta look after her, but that don’t mean I like her more.”

“I hate her,” Sam says miserably.

“Sam. You don’t mean that.”

“I do.” The words sound punched out of him, passionate and sob-edged.

Dean shivers. “Sammy, hate’s a strong word. Pastor Jim says you shouldn’t hate anybody.”

Sam doesn’t answer. His shoulders shake and he huddles into himself, pulling his knees up to his chest. Dean wants to reach over and touch him, but something about Sam’s demeanor makes him hesitate.

“You’re my best friend, Sammy,” he repeats. “Nobody can ever come between us.”

Sam’s quiet for a moment, then he says, “Promise?”

“Promise,” Dean nods, sure of this one thing as he’s never been sure of anything before. “You’ll always be my number one.”

“Okay,” Sam says after another moment. He doesn’t turn over, doesn’t slide next to Dean on the bed like he usually does, but Dean can tell the worst is over. He can feel Sam’s body relaxing.

“Goodnight, Sammy.”

“Goodnight, Dean.”

**//**//**

Once a month, on a Sunday, the little family climbs into the wagon for the five-mile ride to town. It takes almost two hours, and on the way back Dean prefers to walk. They go to church to hear Pastor Jim preach about fire and brimstone, but mostly for a chance to socialize with the other homesteaders. They pick up supplies at the general store, then head into the saloon to get news about the world outside.

Pastor Jim’s a hunter, as are most of the men and women in the little community. They all know they can count on each other in a pinch. They pride themselves on being the type of hunters who can simultaneously hold down the fort, keep their farms and ranches operating, raise their kids, and spring into action if the need arises.

Every one of the families has lost someone, either through natural causes such as childbirth or illness, or on a hunt. When the town was first founded thirty years ago, there were frequent raids by the local monster population. Now the families live in relative peace. The monsters have left the area, gone to find easier prey in the cities and larger towns where they can live in anonymity, undetected, sometimes not even recognized. Dean’s heard the stories of monsters who “pass,” living among the human population, feeding on unsuspecting victims without anyone knowing what they’re up to.

“Lone shapeshifters,” Bobby tells him one night. “They used to come through here, once in a while. Silver burns ‘em, so once word got around that we test every stranger who comes to town, they stopped coming. We never stop testing, though. Can’t never be too sure.”

All the farmhands and cowboys who work the farm have been tested. They’re all hunters too, of course. They spend the off-season traveling all over the countryside, like Dean’s dad, putting down evil wherever they find it, returning to the Winchester farm in the spring and summer to help with the planting and harvesting, herding the cattle to their winter grazing grounds down south in the fall.

Lately, the families had been clamoring for a school. There are enough children to fill a two-room schoolhouse and hire two teachers, one for the little kids, one for a high school. After Pastor Jim’s sermon one Sunday, Eileen Turner gets up and announces plans for a fundraising dinner-dance to garner support for the project.

Ellen just shakes her head. “Pretty sure your daddy wouldn’t let you go to any school,” she tells Dean as they leave the church. “He was very clear about that from the beginning. Thinks you’re safer staying home for school.”

Dean gets the feeling the Winchester family doesn’t quite fit in. He understands that John Winchester is respected not just for his hunting abilities, but also for his past as a soldier in the early settler/monster wars. His dad’s a hero. Dean doesn’t need anyone telling him that to know it’s true, but it’s still a shock each time they go to town. The other kids watch him, never approach him, whisper behind his back. It’s like being a celebrity, or royalty.

Dean hates it.


	3. Chapter 3

**_PART THREE:_ **

By the time he’s twelve, Dean doesn’t go into town anymore.. Bobby and some of the regular farmhands can pick up any needed supplies, and no one at the ranch misses going to church. Nevertheless, one afternoon in late spring, after chores and studies, as Dean’s getting ready to go out to the stable with Sam, Pastor Jim arrives.

He rides up on an old Appaloosa mare, dusty and hot from the ride. His hat and collar are askew, and his beard looks unusually scraggly.

Ellen doesn’t miss a beat. She offers him tea, but he shakes his head.

“Whiskey,” he says as he takes his hat off and lays it on the kitchen table.

Ellen and Dean exchange glances.

“Dean, why don’t you take Jo and Sam out to the stables for an hour or two?” Ellen says, but Pastor Jim shakes his head, reaches out a hand to grab hold of Dean’s arm.

“Dean’s the one I need to talk to,” he says. “Alone.”

Dean feels a shiver go up his spine. Ellen takes Jo and Sam outside, leaving the whiskey bottle and a plate of fresh-baked biscuits on the table. Pastor Jim squints at Dean as he sits down at the table, considering. Then he takes a deep breath and reaches into his pack, pulling out an old leather-bound journal. Dean’s seen his father’s journal, and this one is similar, although it’s a bit thinner, more compact. It doesn’t have papers threatening to spill out of it, and the clasp looks worn but in good condition.

“It’s your mother’s,” Pastor Jim says, laying the journal on the table in front of Dean. He reaches for the whiskey, fills his glass halfway, and takes a long swallow. “She asked me to give it to you on your twelfth birthday.”

Dean doesn’t remind him that his birthday was four months ago, and Pastor Jim doesn’t apologize or explain. His eyes narrow as he pushes the journal toward Dean.

“Go ahead. Take it. It’s yours.”

As he touches the journal, Dean imagines he should feel a tingle, maybe a residue of the magic his mother might have used to ward it. All he feels is smooth, sun-warmed leather. It gives off a rich scent not unlike Remus’s saddle after a good, long ride. He runs his fingers along the binding, finds a loose thread, and lets his fingers slide past it to the clasp. He hesitates, looks up at Pastor Jim.

“Go ahead,” Pastor Jim nods.

Dean opens the clasp, reads the inscription on the inside front cover: Mary Campbell, 1872. He turns the page and reads the first few paragraphs, all entries from his mother’s childhood, when she was about his age.

“You look like her,” Pastor Jim says. His eyes are watering from the whiskey. “She was very beautiful.”

Dean looks down, feeling his cheeks flush. “What else can you tell me about her?” He’s almost afraid to ask. He wonders why this journal wasn’t in his father’s possession, why Mary left it with Pastor Jim instead.

“She was a powerful healer,” Pastor Jim says. “You probably know that. Her parents were killed when she was four years old. Then she was adopted by my parents, and we were raised together. Well, I’m older, of course.”

Dean hadn’t known that. “So you were like a brother to her.”

Pastor Jim smiles and wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. “I’m pretty sure that’s the way she thought of me,” he agrees. “If she thought about me much at all. From the moment she first laid eyes on John Winchester, she never looked at another man.”

“How did they meet?”

Pastor Jim pours a little more whiskey, thinks for a minute. “Well, I can tell you it was my fault,” he says. “John and I served together. When we came home for Christmas one year, I brought John with me. Mary was probably about ten years old at the time. John and I were both 21, brash and young and full of fire. John already had a wife and baby. Didn’t matter. Mary told me, ‘Jim,’ she said, ‘someday I’m gonna marry that man.’ And she did.”

“But she left him,” Dean says, clenching his jaw. He’s afraid of the answer, but he can’t help himself. “If she loved him so much, why would she do that?”

“Okay, here’s the thing no one ever remembers about Mary,” Pastor Jim says. “The thing is, she didn’t just have the gift of healing. She had visions, too. She could see the future sometimes. From the time she was little. She used to tell me when things would happen, before they happened. Then when the adults started acting afraid of her, she stopped. She would tell me about her visions, like how she knew she would marry John one day. But after the age of twelve or so she just stopped.”

“So you think she had a vision that told her to leave my daddy?” Dean feels something coil hot and hard in his belly.

“I think she did what she had to when she left you and John,” Pastor Jim nods. “I think she knew something would happen if she didn’t. Something bad.”

Dean swallows past the lump in his throat. He nods and lowers his chin to his chest to hide the moisture in his eyes. He clears his throat and lifts his head again after a moment, defiant in the face of his own misery.

“Did she ever tell you what it was?”

Pastor Jim shakes his head. “No. She may have said something to your dad at the time, but after she married, I rarely saw her. She was too wrapped up in her new life.” He nods toward the journal. “Whatever she was thinking or feeling, whatever happened to her, it’s either in there or we’ll never know.”

Dean frowns, perplexed. “You didn’t read it?”

“She told me not to,” Jim shrugs. “And your mother was psychic, Dean. She would know. Knowing her, she probably left a curse on that journal so that anyone except you who opened it would get hives. Or worse.” Jim shudders dramatically. “She could be fierce, your mom. When she wanted something done a certain way, she made sure of it. Not to mention, she knew every possible outcome.” He lifts his eyes to Dean, pins him with a piercing look as he lowers his voice. “Lots of people accused your mother of witchcraft. But she wasn’t a witch. She was just a gifted human who knew a few things about spellwork. And despite the family curse, she never used her abilities for evil. Never.”

Dean fingers the pages carefully, reading sentences written by a twelve-year-old girl long ago, probably before she knew they would one day be read by her twelve-year-old son.

“Dad says she was a hunter,” he says, his voice hushed, as if the journal could hear him. As if the spirit of Dean’s mother lived in its pages and could listen in on his life, now that he’d started reading about hers.

“She was,” Jim nods. “The best. She always knew what was coming, see. She could anticipate a monster’s every move, so she never got hurt. She was always one step ahead of whatever she was hunting.”

“But she was only 18 when she married my dad,” Dean muses.

Jim takes another sip of whiskey, slowing down now. “She started going out into the field at 13,” he says. “She helped take down an entire pack of werewolves who were planning to take out the town. After that, there was no stopping her. She was a hero. John took her under his wing, trained her, then fell in love with her. Just like she planned.”

Jim pushes himself to his feet, a little unsteady. “I’d best get back to town,” he says. “Things are happening. Monsters sighted in the vicinity. The almanac says we’re heading into a long dry stretch. Crop failures are likely. Some families are already talking about moving on, heading west.”

“You won’t stay for supper?” Dean asks, getting up respectfully. “Ellen makes a mean beef-lentil stew to go with those biscuits.”

Jim manages a smile, shakes his head. “No can do, son. Maybe another time.”

The way he says those words, the way he doesn’t quite meet Dean’s eyes, tells Dean there’s more he’s not saying. The shiver that runs up Dean’s spine tells him that Jim’s afraid, that it’s not just crop failures and possible monster-sightings that have him spooked.

Dean walks the pastor to his horse, clutching the journal to his chest. He doesn’t want to put it down.

“Pastor Jim, when my mother gave you this journal, did she say anything? Besides the part about giving it to me on my twelfth birthday, I mean.”

Jim turns halfway back towards Dean, but he keeps his hands on his horse, fiddling with the reins. “She said, ‘It’s gonna be a bad year, Jim. I want him to be ready.’”

This time, the shiver runs all the way up into Dean’s hair, making his scalp crawl.

Jim glances up nervously, smiling weakly at Dean. “Sometimes, she was wrong,” he says.

Somehow, Dean doubts that.

He watches as Pastor Jim climbs into the saddle, turns his horse, and heads down the lane, back toward town.

Later, when Ellen asks what Pastor Jim wanted, Dean shows her the journal. He’s already thumbed through it, reading voraciously, and she understands when he excuses himself to read after supper. He sits up in bed with a candle and reads late into the night, Sam curled up asleep beside him.

On the surface, the journal is a lot like any hunter’s. After the opening entries, it chronicles Mary’s hunts, contains lists of ingredients for spells, gives details about the places she’s been, the monsters she’s killed. She lists other hunters’ names by initials only, but Dean recognizes the initials of Rufus Turner, Bobby Singer, and of course John Winchester. The entries are short, cryptic, often undecipherable. But every once in a while there’s a longer entry, or at least a complete sentence or two.

“March 12, 1874. Tell CT her baby is a boy.

“August 9, 1876. Told RS his wife’s ghost was haunting the barn. He didn’t take it well.

“Feb. 2, 1878. Married John. Curse not appeased.

“Jan. 24, 1879. Dean born healthy. Warm gold aura.”

There’s a notation between the two entries denoting her marriage and Dean’s birth, but it’s been scratched out. Dean thinks maybe it was a date and a name, but he can’t make anything else out. He decides it was probably the date his mother found out she was expecting him. She was smart enough not to mention the pregnancy otherwise, and Dean imagines she rarely talked about it aloud. There was a lot of lore around monsters being attracted to humans in childbirth and pregnancy, looking to feed on the unique energy those events produced.

After the notation about Dean’s birth, the journal entries become even more cryptic. Instead of a mother’s journal containing lists of baby’s first step, first word, etc. Dean’s mother notes more hunts and visions. The last few pages chronicle a recurring vision, or dream that repeated itself several times over the last two months before she left:

“Dec. 2, 1882: Dreamed about The Man again. Third time this week.

“Jan. 15, 1883: He’s found me. He’ll come soon if I don’t leave. Last night I saw the date on the calendar. If I don’t leave, he’ll be here November 2. Everything will repeat.

“Feb. 1, 1883: Explained everything to John. He took it well, considering. I leave tomorrow.”

The last written page contained a sloppily-scribbled letter to Dean, as if it was written at the last minute under duress.

_Dearest Dean,_

_By the time you read this, I’ll be gone. I know you may be angry now and not believe me, but you need to know that I had good reason to leave. You’ll be safe now, at least for a few years. After your twelfth birthday, that may change. I need you to be ready, Dean. I know your dad raised you well, and you’re ready for anything, but if anything happens, don’t forget there are people you can count on. Not just Bobby and Ellen and Rufus and Jim, although they’ll always be your closest allies. If a stranger rides into town one day and offers help when you need it most, don’t be surprized if your instincts tell you to trust him. You’ve got good instincts, Dean. Use them._

_Love, Mom_

Dean sits staring at the page for a long time, unwilling to acknowledge that this is the last time his mother ever communicated with him. The only time she ever wrote to him or communicated directly with him at all, in all the time she’d been gone.

Eventually he puts the journal down, extinguishes the candle, and tries to sleep. His mind races with Pastor Jim’s words, and he vows to talk to Bobby or Ellen in the morning. He’ll show the journal to his dad when he comes home, hope it doesn’t feed his father’s obsession and make it worse.

Pastor Jim talked about Dean’s mother in the past, as if she’s no longer alive. As if he never expects to see her again. Yet Dean has watched his dad follow lead after lead, never faltering in his belief that Mary’s still out there somewhere, that all John has to do is find her.

But then what? Mary believed her family was safer if she stayed gone, that’s obvious.

“Even if Dad finds her, she’s not coming home,” Dean says to Ellen and Bobby the next morning over breakfast. He’s shown them the journal, relayed the things Pastor Jim said. “So why does he keep looking for her? Why can’t he just come home?”

Bobby and Ellen exchange glances. “Your daddy loved your mama something fierce,” Ellen says quietly. “A man doesn’t just get over a love like that.”

“If I thought my Karen was still alive, I’d be out there looking for her, too,” Bobby says. Dean’s never heard Bobby talk about his wife before. He didn’t even know Bobby had one. “When there’s no body, nothing to bury, it’s harder to believe she’s really gone. You just can’t give up hope that somehow she’s still out there. It starts to become the only reason you’re alive, the only thing worth living for.”

“Eventually, if you’re not careful, it becomes the thing that kills you,” Ellen says.

Bobby frowns, shaking his head. “In the end, you stop being careful. Obsessions are dangerous things.”

“Well, we need to make him stop,” Dean says. “For his own good.”

“And how do you propose we do that?” Bobby raises his eyebrows skeptically. “‘Cuz in case you hadn’t noticed, your daddy is one hell of a stubborn bastard.” 

“I’ll go after him,” Dean says. “I’ll make him stop.”

Bobby’s eyes widen.

“How are you gonna do that? You’re twelve years old,” Ellen scoffs.

“Dad’s not the only stubborn bastard around here,” Dean declares, using the cuss word to bolster his own courage. “I’m a Winchester, too.”

“Yes, you are,” Bobby nods. “And right now, you’re the only one in residence at this ranch. We need you here, boy. If you leave, how am I gonna convince anybody this place hasn’t been abandoned?”

“Bobby,” Ellen warns.

“No, Ellen, he needs to hear it. He’s the man of this place at the moment. And I can tell you, boy, it ain’t easy holding onto a place this size in this day and age. Rufus and I have had to run off rustlers more than once, and word’s already got around that your daddy hasn’t been back in nearly two years. People are starting to talk.”

Dean hasn’t thought of that. He’s never even considered it.

“We’ll get out and reinforce the warding before I go,” he suggests.

“Those rustlers ain’t monsters, Dean,” Bobby says. “They’re human. There’s no warding against human thieves, and if you leave, it’ll just be that much harder to convince anyone to help me defend this place. I’ve already let my own place go to seed. I just don’t have time to tend it. Been holding down the Winchester fort for nigh on four years now.”

“Nobody needs to know I’m gone,” Dean says, but he can feel his courage seeping away with the idea of riding out alone. He’d been thinking Bobby would come with him, but that’s not possible, he sees that now. And Sam’s too young.

He’s stuck.

He doesn’t stop scheming and planning, though. Lying in bed with Sam that night, he can’t help sharing his thoughts with the younger boy. He needs the encouragement.

“You and me, Sam, we could ride town to town for a couple months at a time, checking with the local folk to see if any of them have seen Dad,” he says, staring at the ceiling in the dark as Sam does the same beside him. “You’re eight years old now. Not just a little kid anymore. You can take long rides. You’re strong. And if bandits or gunslingers try to rob us, you know how to slip away and hide. You’ve got skills.”

“What about the monsters?” Sam’s voice is small.

Dean squares his jaw. “No monster would try to go after us,” he says with more bravado than real courage. “They wouldn’t dare. We’re Winchesters. They know about us. Monsters hear the name and they run the other way.”

Sam’s silent, but Dean can feel his hand brush against Dean’s under the covers. Dean twines his fingers with Sam’s instinctively, giving them a squeeze for comfort.

“Am I a Winchester too?”Sam asks finally.

“Of course you are,” Dean says firmly, squeezing Sam’s hand for emphasis. “Of course you are. Dad adopted you, didn’t he? That makes you one of us.”

Sam’s quiet again for another moment, then he takes a deep breath, lets it out slow. “I think your mom’s still alive, Dean.”

Dean feels the now-familiar shiver go up his spine, turns to look at Sam in the dark. “You remember that night, don’t you, Sammy?”

Sam turns his head to look at Dean, eyes wide and glistening in the moonlight through the window. “She was so brave. She carried me out of the fire. There was so much smoke. I couldn’t breathe, and I kept falling asleep and waking up coughing. The smoke hurt my eyes. Then I could breathe again, and she gave me to the man with the big warm coat. He smelled good, strong and brave like her. She said, ‘It’s okay,’ and I fell asleep after that.”

Dean gazes at Sam, amazed that he’s not more surprized by Sam’s admission. “She was a healer,” he says finally. “She probably knew how to help you sleep so you wouldn’t cry.”

Sam nods, wide-eyed, and Dean reaches out with his free hand, brushes a strand of hair from Sam’s eyes.

“I was so scared,” Sam whispers, and Dean smiles, reassuring.

“You’re okay now, Sammy,” he says softly. “You’re okay.”

They’re not going anywhere, Dean realizes. Sam’s not ready, and Dean’s not leaving him.

So that’s settled.

**//**//**

By the end of the summer, it’s all moot anyway.

The crops fail. Locusts eat everything, filling the sky until they block out the sun, chomping and buzzing all day and all night long for weeks. Sam and Dean step on them as they walk back and forth to the barn because there’s not an inch of ground where the locusts aren’t. When they finally rise up and leave at the end of August, there’s nothing left.

Dead grasshoppers cover the yard, the rooves of the house and barn. Their carcasses line the window and doorsills like salt lines.

At the end of September, Adam comes home.

Ellen and Dean are raking the front yard, Sam and Jo playing nearby under the shade of the oak tree that’s only just begun to shed its leaves. They push the piles of leaves together and take turns jumping into them, squealing with delight.

Sam sees him first. He stops his jumping, stands still and stares down the lane. Dean notices Sam and stops raking, turning to stare in the same direction. A lone figure is walking toward them, leading two horses, the last one carrying an unusual load.

It’s too long to be a bedroll, too thick.

Dean’s not even aware of dropping the rake, running down the lane screaming, till Bobby’s there, grabbing him around the middle, holding him tight as Adam draws close, till it’s obvious what’s on the hindmost horse. Their dad’s horse.

 _Bad things come in threes,_ Dean hears in his head. _The worst thing always comes last._

Pastor Jim’s bad news. Crop failure because of locusts.

Dad.

“No!” Dean wails, finally collapsing against Bobby, admitting defeat because he can’t fight the old man. He just can’t.

Adam walks past him without so much as a glance, finally stops in front of Ellen.

“He wouldn’t listen,” he says, and that’s how Dean learns that Ellen had loved his dad, had held out hope that he might come home to her one day.

For a moment, Ellen looks like she might cry, but she doesn’t. Her lip trembles and her eyes glisten, but she holds it together, barely glancing at the wrapped figure slung over the saddle of John’s horse.

“He never could,” she says, voice shaking only a little.

Adam doesn’t nod, just stares at her for another moment before dipping his chin into his shoulder, turning his head toward Bobby without looking at him.

“He deserves a hunter’s funeral. I brought him home so we could give him that.”

“‘Course,” Bobby breathes, but to Dean it sounds more like “Curse.”

They build the pyre out back behind the woodshed, in the field that’s already been burned clean for next year’s planting. Their father’s ashes will help fertilize the soil, enrich it for a future crop. It’s a hopeful gesture, looking to next year’s harvest to make up for this year’s loss. John would approve.

Adam refuses to talk about what happened. He blames shapeshifters, confirms that the situation in the field is getting worse because the bastards are everywhere. They could be anyone. Adam takes a bottle of whiskey with him to his room and doesn’t come out for three days, and then only for more whiskey.

Things go on that way for months. Winter comes and the farm shuts down, goes into stasis. The house is in mourning, a black pall hanging over every daily chore and activity. Silence reigns. Meals are prepared and kitchen chores done wordlessly, day after day. After the first week, Adam moves into the master bedroom, which has its own fireplace. He takes his meals there, and Ellen does her best to keep the fire going. Adam won’t tolerate anyone else in the room.

Sam and Dean spend their days in the barn, creep back to the house in the evenings to eat supper. Bobby comes by once a week with supplies, eats silently with the household, then retreats to his own house.

Dean’s thirteenth birthday comes and goes without much celebration. Bobby gives him a new pocket knife, and Sam gives him a little brass protection amulet that hangs on a leather string. Ellen bakes him a special cake with the last of the sugar. The railroad is covered with snow, so trains won’t get through again until spring, and supplies are short everywhere.

In the spring, Adam comes out of his self-imposed isolation long enough to punch Dean in the jaw, knocking him flat.

“This is your fault,” he snarls. “Dad wouldn’t let go of your mother. He wouldn’t believe she was dead! He got really reckless and stupid. Drank too much. I couldn’t stop him, and now he’s dead. Well, you better stay out of my way, kid, or you’re gonna wish you were, too.”

He turns to Sam, hovering in the kitchen doorway. Sam’s face is a mask of fury, but Adam doesn’t even notice.

“And you.” He glares at Sam. “You don’t even belong here. You’re some rejected street kid my dad brought home because that woman had him wrapped around her little finger. You’re not one of us. I’m the master around here now, and if you want to stay here under my roof, eating my food, you better start pulling your weight. From now on, you sleep in the stable, you hear me? You eat the scraps off our table after we’re done eating. Now go saddle my horse. I’m going into town.”

After Adam leaves, Ellen gives Dean some ice for his jaw, muttering under her breath about Adam’s overinflated sense of himself.

“But you better do as he says,” she nods at Sam. “I don’t want to see you get hurt.” To Dean, she says, “I’ll be sure he gets enough to eat, don’t worry.”

Dean helps Sam move blankets and a pillow out to the barn, brings a box with Sam’s toys and clothes. The wood stove in the barn keeps it almost as warm as the house, but it’s drafty. The wind howls through the rafters and the barn cats stay busy catching mice. Dean lights a lantern and creates a cozy pallet made of straw and hay in Paula’s old stall. When he beds down next to Sam and reaches to turn out the light, Sam stops him.

“What are you doing?” Sam asks. “You don’t need to sleep here too.”

Dean lifts an eyebrow. “Really? You think I’d leave you out here all by yourself? Dad told me to look out for you, and I aim to honor that. I’m not leaving you out here all by yourself. You’re only eight years old.”

“I’ll be nine in three days,” Sam reminds him. “I’m not a baby, Dean.”

“No, you’re not,” Dean agrees as he puts out the light. “But you’ll always be younger than me.” He pulls up the blankets as he lies down, huddling into the little cocoon of warmth created by their bodies.

“Does that mean I have to follow your orders?” Sam sounds petulant.

“For now. Yeah.” Dean scoots closer, so they’re breathing the same air. “Yeah, I guess it does.”

Sam’s silent so long Dean thinks he’s never going to answer. Then he takes a deep breath and whispers, “Okay.”

Dean’s chest swells with pride and protectiveness. “Now go to sleep, Sammy.”

**//**//**

That summer, things go from bad to worse.

Adam spends his days drinking, whoring, and gambling, most of it in nearby towns. He stays away for weeks at a time, then comes home with a buddy or two, cowboys and no-good drifters who drink his whiskey and eat Ellen’s cooking. They stomp across the kitchen floor in their muddy boots and start sheepishly when Ellen yells at them.

Ellen chases some of them away at the end of a shotgun. Some she just gets Bobby to help her load onto their horses and head them back toward town with a grumbled warning to “not come back.”

Not one of them dares to ride up on his own. When they come, they come with Adam.

Nevertheless, Dean stares at each one, trying to see anything in their dirty, scruffy faces that might indicate they’re more than just the losers and hangers-on they appear to be.

In July, thunderstorms rip across the prairie, bringing hail and tornadoes and short, heavy rainfalls that don’t so much soak the soil as flatten the young wheat trying to grow in it. Bobby and Dean ride out to survey the damage, Sam in tow. Adam can’t be bothered. He talks about selling the farm, moving west. He’d rather be a rancher than a farmer anyway, doesn’t listen when Bobby says he needs to be both if he wants to hold onto the land.

“I’m a hunter,” Adam insists. “I kill things. Sitting around here doing nothin’ is boring. It’s stupid.”

When Adam rides out in the fall with the cattle drive, headed south to Texas, the household breathes a sigh of relief.

A pack of werewolves attacks just before Sam’s tenth birthday. Dean finally puts his training to practical use, makes his first kill with only a couple of minor scratches to show for it. Between Dean, Bobby, Ellen, and two of the local boys who happen to be helping with the spring planting, they put down the entire pack and burn the bodies. Dean helps Ellen clean up the mess while Bobby and the local boys ride the perimeter of the farm, looking for weaknesses and shoring up the warding.

By the end of that summer, after more storms have ruined the crops for the third year in a row, even Bobby shakes his head. 

“I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to think this place is cursed,” he says to Ellen and Dean one evening at supper. “We got enough supplies to get through the winter, but we’re living on credit, guys. I don’t know what to tell you.”

They don’t talk about how Adam has squandered their father’s savings. How if he doesn’t come back next spring with the cattle, they won’t have anything left.

Dean thinks about his mother’s journal. 

“I think I might know what to do,” he says.

**//**//**

It’s nearly two more years before Adam returns. He takes one look at Dean, who’s had a growth spurt over the past year, and scowls.

“You got so ugly, you look like a girl,” he pronounces. “Boys ain’t supposed to have big lips and big eyes like you. How’d you manage that, huh? Do I gotta call you my sister now?”

“You don’t gotta call me anything,” Dean scowls. He’s been training, building up muscle. At sixteen, he’s been managing the farm on his own for almost two years, with Bobby’s help. Ellen’s, too. It hasn’t been easy, but they’re hanging in there. This year’s crop has just been planted, and he’s feeling hopeful.

“Oh yeah?” Adam curls his lip, steps closer. “How about ‘Stupid’? You get hit in the head enough times for that yet? Huh, Ugly?”

Dean stands his ground as Adam stalks up till they’re nose to nose.

“Well, will you look at that,” Adam says. “Baby brother grew as tall as me. Your balls grow too, Deanie? Huh? You tough enough to take me now?”

“I think I just might be, if that’s what it comes to,” Dean counters, anger blooming in his chest as he stares Adam down. He doesn’t have the weight to match his height yet, nor Adam’s experience, but he’ll be damned if he backs down now. He’s worked too hard.

Adam glares for another moment, then blinks. Dean’s heart soars, and he clenches his fists reflectively. Adam’s hesitation fills Dean with an odd sense of triumph. Maybe Adam won’t try to fight him after all. Maybe there won’t be a confrontation.

But Dean’s hopes are crushed in the next moment, as Adam speaks the dreaded words.

“Well, anyway, I’m home now,” Adam says with a smirk. “The master of the house returns.”

**//**//**

“What happened to the cattle?” Bobby asks over supper that night.

“Sold ‘em,” Adam says as he takes another bite of Ellen’s cornbread. Dean baked that batch, but he doesn’t say so. It’s Ellen’s recipe, anyway.

“Well, that’s good,” Bobby nods, glancing at Dean. “We could use the cash to help get us through the winter.”

Adam says nothing, but his jaw clenches.

“You _do_ have the cash?” Bobby asks finally, since it’s obvious Adam’s not answering.

“No,” the eldest Winchester says. “Lost it investing in stocks.”

There’s a moment of silence, and Dean can feel the tension building. Then Bobby slams his hand down on the table.

“Lost it gambling, you mean!” he snaps. “What the hell’s wrong with you, boy? Do you realize how hard your brother and me and Ellen have been working to keep this farm afloat the past two years? If you’d been gone much longer, there’d have been no home for you to come back to.”

Which isn’t quite true, Dean thinks. They were doing just fine without Adam. Better, in fact.

“I’ll thank you to use a respectful tone when you speak to me, old man,” Adam warns, putting his food down as he glares at Bobby across the table, pointing for emphasis. “Last time I checked, you owe your livelihood to my family. If I choose to fire you and bring in another foreman, another manager, I’m within my rights to do that. You hear me, Singer? You work for _me_.”

Bobby’s eyes grow wide, then narrow. His nostrils flare. “You haven’t had enough money to pay me in years,” he snaps. “I’ve been working for _free_ , you idiot! Me and Ellen both. So if you want to fire us, go ahead! It’s not like you can hire anybody to replace us, seeing as how you gambled all your money away, and nobody would be stupid enough to work for you for nothin’.”

“Nobody except _you_ , you mean!” Adam sneers. “Which tells me you can’t leave if you wanted to. You got nowhere else to go.”

“As a matter of fact, I do!” Bobby rises to his feet, knocking back his chair with a loud screech. “Truth be told, I’ve got a farm of my own that I’ve let go these past few years. Maybe I’ll just go tend it!”

“You do that,” Adam says. “Stop eating my food and drinking my whiskey.”

“Maybe I will!” Bobby fumes. He grabs his jacket and stomps to the door.

“Fine!” Adam pushes his chair back and stands, a little unsteady because he’s been drinking. “Good riddance!”

“You can say that again,” Bobby growls as he slams the door behind him.

In the silence that follows, Dean and Ellen exchange horrified glances. Dean’s not sure whether to laugh or keep quiet. Adam sways on his feet, casting accusing glares all around, frowning when he catches Dean’s eye.

“What’re _you_ looking at?” he demands.

Dean shakes his head and grabs his jacket, heads out after Bobby with Sam at his heels. As the door closes behind them, he can hear Ellen’s voice rising, knows she’s giving Adam a piece of her mind.

“Damn it, Bobby, where the hell do you think you’re going?” Dean says when he catches up to the old hunter in the barn. Bobby’s saddling his horse, preparing to make good on his threat to leave.

“Where the hell do you think?” Bobby growls. “Home. Or on the road. Hell, maybe I’ll join a pack of hunters and go back to doing what I should’ve been doing all these years, instead of wasting time trying to make an honest living on this dried-up piece of land.”

“We’ve been doing pretty well, these past two years,” Dean protests. “Last year’s harvest was a real winner.”

“Yeah, thanks to your mama’s magic,” Bobby says. “If you hadn’t worked those spells from her notebook, we’d be in worse shape this year than we were before, and you know it. This land ain’t sustainable, long term. It’s a dust-bowl just waiting to happen.”

“Then we sell and move on,” Dean says. “We head west, find better land. I hear there’s some prime farming in Oregon State...”

“Dean.” Bobby finishes saddling his horse, turns to Dean with a look at once fond and exasperated. “You just don’t give up, do you? And I admire that. Winchester stubbornness can be a really good thing, keeps you going when the going gets tough. But sometimes, it gets you dead. Sometimes, it’s better to just admit defeat and move on before it kills you.”

He glances at Sam, then lifts his gaze over Sam’s head, back towards the house. “That kid in there, he ain’t a kid anymore. He’s become what he’s gonna be, and the fact is, he’s a drunk and a loser. I’m sorry to be the one to say it, but Adam’s never gonna amount to a hill o’ beans in this life, and that’s a fact. But he’s right about one thing. This place belongs to him. He’s the rightful heir, recognized as such by law and known to the entire county as John Winchester’s oldest son. So unless you want to stay here and work for him, you need to start thinking about hitting the road.”

Dean glances at Sam, who is busy brushing Romulus. “I can’t go anywhere without Sam,” he says, soft but firm. 

“So take him with you,” Bobby says. “He’s old enough to work a farm, round up cattle. Hell, he can shoot almost as well as you can. Knows all I know about hunting. He’ll be a fine hunter, if you two wanna try that life.”

A shiver runs up Dean’s spine, and he shakes his head. “I promised Dad I’d look after him, not put him in danger. He’s still too small to fight monsters.”

“Well, you do what you gotta do, boy,” Bobby nods. “I’m just saying, with that brother of yours home for good, broke and looking for trouble, things ain’t lookin’ good.”

“We’ll manage,” Dean says with more conviction than he feels. “This is my home, Bobby. I can’t just leave it to Adam to destroy. I’ll manage it myself if I have to. I just don’t want to lose you.”

“You’re not losing me,” Bobby assures him. “I’m just down the road. You’re welcome anytime.”

**//**//**

Despite the rain, Dean and Sam stay out most of the day, checking on the newly-planted crops. They rework the spells for fair weather and fertile soil that Dean learned from his mother’s notebook. They check the warding along the perimeter of the farm, looking for weaknesses.

The last thing they need is another band of marauding monsters getting onto the property, hell-bent on destruction.

Dean moves back into the barn with Sam, and Adam mostly leaves them alone. Ellen and Jo move back into the caretaker’s house, but that isn’t unusual for them to do during the warmer months of the year. It’s their own home, after all. Jo’s been attending school in town for the past two years, so she spends less time traipsing after Sam and Dean anyway.

Within the week, Adam falls back into his old ways, going into town to gamble and drink. Dean’s not sure where he got the money, but when a group of loan sharks come home with Adam late one afternoon, he figures it out.

“You’re mortgaging the farm?” Dean accuses after the men leave.

Adam glares. “What do _you_ care?” he sneers. “It’s not like it belongs to _you_ , Ugly.”

“I’m manager now, so I need to know what’s going on. If you bring strangers home to scope out the property, you need to tell me.”

“What’s going on is none of your goddamned business!” Adam says, pounding the table for emphasis.

The next week, Adam brings home a party. He turns the house into a saloon filled with rough men and women, several of whom take an interest in Dean.

“My word, you’re a pretty boy,” one woman tells Dean as she leans against his arm. Her breasts are practically falling out of her tight blouse, and her lips are stained bright red. Dean’s never been this close to a woman before, besides Ellen and his nearly-forgotten mother. His heart races and his cock twitches. He’s sure he’s turned several shades of pink.

“You sure are the sweetest thing,” another woman says as she pushes up on his other side. She runs her painted nails up his arm, and Dean shivers.

“You ever been kissed, baby?” The first woman asks, rubbing herself along Dean’s body. She runs a hand down his chest, settles on his stomach, just over his belt buckle. “I bet you ain’t.”

“Those plump lips look right kissable,” the other woman coos, and her friend nods, rubbing Dean’s belly.

“Sure do,” she agrees.

Dean feels his cock swell and wishes he could cover the tell-tale bulge in his jeans. He glances up just in time to catch Adam watching him, a look of such pure hatred in his eyes it takes Dean’s breath away.

“Excuse me,” he mumbles to the women. “I gotta go feed the horses.”

“You need a little help with that, sunshine?” one of the women offers.

“Yeah, we could all go roll around in a little hay,” the second woman says, batting her eyelashes. She slides her hand down over Dean’s dick and squeezes.

Dean practically jumps out of his skin. “No, no,” he chuckles nervously as he extricates himself from their embraces. “I gotta go by myself, thanks.”

“Ohhhhh.” The women make disappointed noises, puffing out their painted lips. They let Dean go with exaggerated reluctance, and he bolts out of the house and into the night with his heart pounding and his palms sweating. He takes deep gulps of the smoke-free air as he heads for the barn, where he can see the soft glow of Sam’s lantern. The boy’s up late reading again.

Dean slips into the barn’s almost-warm interior. It smells and feels more like home than the house does these days. The horses snuffle a greeting when they pick up his scent, and Remus stamps his foot.

“How’s the party?” Sam looks up as Dean slides into the empty stall that’s become their only haven since Adam returned. The soft glow of the lantern’s light gives Sam’s features a sharpness that Dean hadn’t noticed before. Sam looks older, wiser. Curled up on the flannel blankets they’ve accumulated to make their bed, Sam looks both childlike and ageless, and Dean catches a glimpse of the man he’ll become in the cut of his cheekbones, the shadows around his oddly slanted eyes. He lowers the book he’s been reading to look up expectantly at Dean, and Dean’s breath hitches. His heart almost stops.

Sam’s more beautiful than any woman. He’s like something else entirely. Those women back there, they can’t hold a candle to this. They couldn’t even begin to.

“They’re just a bunch of losers,” Dean smirks, turning his back on Sam as he undresses for bed. “Like my brother. I wouldn’t be surprised if they burn the house down, with all the smoking they’re doing.”

Sam frowns. “Really? You’re leaving them to burn the house down?”

“Not _really_ , Sammy,” Dean scoffs. “Damn, you’re so gullible.”

“Am not,” Sam protests.

“Are too. Now scoot over and put that book away. Time for bed.”

Sam grumbles adorably as Dean turns down the light and slips under the blankets, pulling them up around both boys. He turns his back as Sam puts the book aside with a sigh and lies down behind him. The younger boy snuggles against Dean’s back, and Dean’s belly swoops. His cock hardens. It’s too late to slink into a corner of the barn to jerk off, but if he waits till Sam falls asleep it’ll just get worse. He presses the heel of his hand over his erection, trapped inside his underwear, and prays for it to settle down.

“Dean? You okay?”

Of course he’s let out some kind of whimpering noise. Just the stimulation of his hand is threatening to make him go off like a rocket.

“Yeah,” he croaks, shifting in an attempt to ease his throbbing dick. “I’m fine.”

He knows his response is to a combination of the stimulation of the evening’s festivities and Sam’s nearness. He’s had hard-ons before, usually rubs them off in a quiet corner of the barn when nobody’s around. He’s got a stash of Ellen’s mythology books, which feature dim photographs of Greek statues and paintings of naked saints, to help him. The one of Saint Sebastian, tied to a tree and pierced by arrows, is his personal favorite. He doesn’t think about whether the images are male or female, just their nakedness.

Now, remembering the women’s touches, the swell of their breasts, the hand on his crotch, Dean can’t help himself. He’s never been touched like that. Never had anyone press their body against him in that way. Sam’s different, of course. Sam’s just a child. Those women were grown adults, like the figures in the books.

Nevertheless, it’s Sam’s sharp little face he sees in his mind when he shoves his hand into his underwear to grab his swollen dick. He sees Sam’s eyes, filled with adoration, as Dean comes all over his hand with a strangled moan.

Sam lies perfectly still beside him. Although Dean’s pretty sure he understands what just happened, he’s got enough sense not to say anything. They live on a farm. Sex is a normal part of life. At twelve, Sam’s probably already feeling the urgings of puberty himself, probably spends his own time alone with his dick. Dean’s pretty sure he was twelve the first time he managed to whack off.

Maybe it’s time they slept separately, though. The last thing Dean wants is for something to happen that Sam’s not ready for. Jerk-off fantasies not withstanding, Dean’s absolutely clear in his mind about the need to keep Sam safe. He’d be the first to admit that his feelings for Sam are complicated, but until this moment they’d never included a sexual element, and Dean intends to keep it that way.

At least until Sam’s old enough to know what he wants.

**//**//**

He wakes up to the smell of smoke.

It’s dark in the barn, but Dean can see the pulsing glow of fire through the barn window. He can hear voices yelling. The horses are stomping nervously in their stalls. Sam’s sprawled across him, still asleep, so Dean shakes him, gently at first, then more vigorously.

“Hey, Sammy, wake up. Come on!”

“Wha–“ Sam lifts his head, groggy and disoriented.

“Something’s on fire,” Dean says, and Sam’s instantly awake, staring around with a wild look in his eyes.

The barn door bangs open, and Adam is silhouetted in the doorway, the glow of firelight behind him. He’s got something in his hand, a bottle or a gun, Dean can’t tell which.

“Ugly?” He slurs as he stumbles forward. “You in here?”

With the door open, Dean can hear the crackling of the flame and the yelling more clearly. There are whoops mixed with screams of distress. The horses whinny and stomp as the smell of smoke grows stronger.

“Adam?” Dean scrambles to his feet, fighting back the panic rising in his chest. “What’s happened? What have you done?”

“Oh, you _are_ in here,” Adam sneers, staggering forward. “You know, I oughta shoot that kid. He in here, too? I bet he is.” He raises his shooting arm, and now Dean can tell Adam’s holding a gun, pointed vaguely in his direction.

Dean positions himself between Adam and Sam without even realizing he’s doing it. “Adam? What the hell you doin’, huh? Put the gun down.”

“No, you know what? I don’t think so.” Adam staggers forward, firing arm outstretched. “I think that kid caused all this. It’s _his_ fault Dad died. If Dad hadn’t brought him home that night, none of this would’ve happened.”

Dean glances through the open door behind Adam. The house is on fire. Figures run back and forth, haphazardly throwing buckets of water at the flames. More figures are running around waving their arms and yelling demonically. They seem to be celebrating the destruction rather than trying to stop it.

“That’s crazy,” Dean protests. “Sam’s just a kid. He’s got nothin’ to do with anything. Now put the gun down.”

“Why are you protecting him? Huh? Are you in on it? You’re both trying to destroy me, is that it? It is, isn’t it? You’re gonna kill me and take my money, steal my friends...Sally and Ginny think you’re so pretty, huh? Well, when I’m done with you, little brother, no woman’s ever gonna want to look at you!”

He raises his arm to shoot just as an explosion rocks the barn. Dean has a moment to realize that the fire must have reached the house’s kerosene storage tank when the horses decide they’ve had enough. Remus bolts from his stall, followed by Romulus and General Washington and the two plow horses, whinnying in terror. They stampede out the open barn door, knocking Adam aside. The older Winchester manages to stay on his feet but he drops his gun, and Dean grabs Sam and makes a break for it, dragging the boy out the barn door in the horses’ wake.

The scene outside is utter chaos. The house is completely engulfed, the flames’ flickering light casting sinister shadows as people and horses run wildly in various directions. A couple of men seem to be trying to organize a bucket line from the well, but others are simply standing around, watching the destruction. Smoke billows into the night sky, blocking out the stars, and Dean has a brief moment to be grateful there’s no wind before he’s tackled from behind.

“Stupid freaky little bastard!” Adam shouts in his ear as he wrestles Dean to the ground.

Adam’s drunk. Dean can smell the liquor on his breath, and Dean figures if he can just wiggle away, he and Sam can run to Bobby’s house.

But Adam’s heavy. He’s sitting on Dean, has his hand in Dean’s hair so he can slam his head against the ground, his other fist raining blows to the side of Dean’s face, and Dean sees stars.

“Let’s see if the girls still think you’re so pretty after I get done with you!”

“Get off me!” Dean gets his hands under him, heaves up with all his might. He manages to unseat his brother and roll away from him before Adam launches himself on top of Dean, fists flying. 

“This is all your fault, you little creep!”

They wrestle and roll on the ground, Dean’s primary objective to get away, still hoping he can run rather than fight, but Adam’s not having it. He sits on Dean’s chest with his greater weight, choking him with one hand while slamming his fist into Dean’s face with the other. Dean fends off Adam’s blows as well as he can, but his ears are ringing and his head spins as Adam slams his fist into Dean’s face over and over again. Adam’s drunk and uncoordinated, but deadly in his fierce determination, his irrational hatred. He seems possessed, caught up in a frenzy of violence and revenge, unable to stop himself.

Then Adam gets his hands around Dean’s throat and squeezes. “You’re gonna pay, goddamn it!”

Dean’s face hurts so much it’s starting to go numb. His vision grays, he tastes blood, and the ringing in his ears is replaced by a roaring sound. It occurs to him that he’s going to die. Adam won’t stop until Dean’s dead.

He struggles with all the frantic strength of a dying man, but Adam only presses harder on his throat. Just before he passes out Dean thinks he hears a gunshot. A scream.

Then blackness.

**//**//**

Later, he has vague memories of being lifted into a wagon, of gentle hands sliding over his arms and legs, checking for injuries. Bobby’s voice. Sam crying.

Later, he remembers bits and pieces of the ride to Bobby’s house, the way the wagon bumped and swayed, Sam holding his hand and crying. There seem to be men and women on horseback, surrounding the wagon. The acrid smell of smoke slowly fades.

But at the time, all Dean remembers is waking up in Bobby’s house, in the old guest bed he slept in when he was little. His face is throbbing. He’s dizzy and thirsty, and his throat burns like he’s been swallowing fire.

Sam sits in the old armchair by the bed, fast asleep.

Dean’s mother stands in the doorway, dusty breeches and boots splattered with what can only be dried blood. She’s still wearing her holster and hat, and somehow the black velvet vest over her white linen shirt makes Dean think of the pirates in _Treasure Island._

All his books burned up in the fire.

“Mom?” His voice is dry, more of a croak than a word.

“Hey, Dean,” Mary Winchester says, giving him a tired smile.

“What are you doing here?”

Their voices wake Sam, who sits forward and grabs Dean’s hand in both of his, his face a mask of worry.

“Dean?”

Dean drags his eyes away from the apparition of his mother to glance at Sam. “Water.”

“Yeah, sure,” Sam says. “I’ll go get you some.”

Sam gets up and backs out of the room, clearly reluctant, keeping his eyes on Dean until the last possible moment. Mary lets him pass, then moves into the room to stand in his place next to the bed. When Dean reaches his hand up to her she takes it, fingers cool against his skin as she takes his pulse.

Now that she’s closer, Dean can see she’s older than he remembers. Her face is harder and there are lines around her mouth and eyes. There’s a scar on her chin and another one under her left eye. She looks like she hasn’t eaten well in a long time.

“I came as fast as I could,” she says, as if her twelve-year absence has only been a few days, as if she was delayed due to traffic or a hard snowfall. “When I had the vision of Sam shooting Adam, I dropped everything to get here. You have to believe me, Dean. That was not something I ever saw coming.”

“Sam shot Adam?” He doesn’t remember. He barely remembers Adam tackling him.

Mary nods. “Adam was trying to drag you into the fire,” she says. “He went completely crazy. I never saw that coming. All this time, protecting you from the evil outside, when in the end it was right there in the house with you the whole time.”

“Adam’s not evil,” Dean croaks as Sam comes back into the room with a glass of water, Bobby at his heels.

“He tried to kill you!” Mary insists. “If Sam hadn’t been there to stop him, he would have succeeded, too.” She steps out of the way as Sam moves in close, holds the glass to Dean’s lips so he can take a sip.

Which is when he notices that his hands are wrapped in linen. His arms, too.

“Sam dragged you out of the fire,” Mary says. “You were burned pretty badly, but I think I’ve managed to heal the worst of it.”

“It’s good to see you awake, son,” Bobby says.

“How long have I been out?” Dean’s memories are fuzzy, and he feels stiff and achy, like he’s been sleeping a long time.

“You were in pretty bad shape when we brought you here,” Bobby says. “Mary’s spent close to a week just getting the worst of your burns healed. Not to mention the mess Adam made of your face.”

“I’ve been unconscious for a week?” Dean starts to sit up, but Sam and Mary reach out to stop him. The movement makes his head throb, and he falls back with a moan. “The farm. Somebody needs to feed the animals...”

Bobby and Mary exchange a glance, and Sam frowns. “It’s lost, Dean,” he says. “Those men from the Grange came and took everything. Adam gambled it all away. All that’s left is our horses, yours and mine.”

“It gets worse, if you can stand it,” Bobby says, and Dean nods.

“Give it to me straight. I can take it.”

“Sam’s wanted by the law,” Bobby says. “There were witnesses who saw him shoot Adam that night. A posse already came by, asking for him. If they find him, they’ll hang him.”

“But he’s just a kid!” Dean protests, shocked.

“Doesn’t matter,” Bobby says, grim. “In the eyes of the law, he’s a murderer.”

“It’s desperate times,” Mary says. “Violent times. I know you’ve been protected from the worst of it – or at least that was the plan – but the truth of it is, human civilization is just holding on by a shoestring right now. Hunters and frontier lawmen and women are the only things preventing total collapse and anarchy. Now, the law lets us hunters do what we do because they need us. But if we start crossing the line, killing people instead of monsters, then our lives are forfeit.”

“What are you saying?” Dean glances from one grim face to the next, finally meeting Sam’s eyes. The kid looks terrified. His lips tremble, and his slanted hazel eyes are covered with a sheen of tears. His fingers, still clutching the half-empty water glass, are white-knuckled and nail-bitten. Dean’s chest swells with love, and his own eyes fill with tears. “You’re gonna take him away, ain’t ya?”

“Just for a little while,” Mary nods. “Just till they stop looking for him.”

“He’ll be safe, Dean,” Bobby chimes in. “Mary’s got a training camp for orphan hunters’ kids in Oregon State. She’ll take him there for now, and when you’re better, you can join them.”

Panic rises in Dean’s chest. The thought of letting Sam out of his sight makes his throat and eyelids burn. His chest feels like it’s on fire. Again. His belly feels like it’s full of lead.

“Sammy,” Dean whispers. “Is this what you want?”

“I killed your brother,” Sam says, face a mask of misery. “And I don’t regret it. I don’t. He was gonna kill you. But I don’t deserve you, Dean. You probably hate me, and I wouldn’t blame you if you do.”

“I don’t hate you,” Dean says. “I could never hate you.” He wants to say more, so much more, but with Mary and Bobby watching, he doesn’t dare. His love for Sam is a private thing, so intense and deep he doesn’t even understand it. It’s the last thing he has of his father, his promise to take care of Sam, but it’s more than that. “Hey, kiddo. You go with my mom, okay? She’s the best at what she does. And I’ll come as soon as I can.”

It’s almost unbearable, sending Sam away. It hurts more than anything Dean’s ever done.

Sam nods, too overcome with emotion to speak. Dean cracks a smile, tries to be encouraging, and is rewarded by a little smile in return. Sam’s dimples make their appearance, and Dean suddenly wishes he had a photograph of the boy. Something to hold onto.

As if Sam can read his thoughts, he pulls something from his pocket, putting the glass of water down carefully on the bedside table first. It’s the little brass amulet, the one he gave Dean years ago for Christmas. He lays it on the bedside table, next to the water.

“We had to take it off when we were fixing you,” he explains. “It was burning your skin.”

“Thanks, Sammy,” Dean whispers, swallowing back the lump in his sore throat.

“Come on, boy,” Bobby says to Sam. “Let’s let Dean say goodbye to his mother.”

Like before, Sam’s eyes stay on Dean until the last possible moment. Then Mary and Dean are alone again.

“I guess you know about Dad,” Dean says, struggling to keep the resentment out of his voice.

“Dean, if I could’ve done it any differently, I would’ve,” Mary says. “I’m asking you to trust me on that. Your dad trusted me.”

“He didn’t have a choice!” Dean blurts out. “He never stopped looking for you, believing you survived the fire that night, even after everybody else said you were dead!”

“I know,” Mary sighs. “I wish things could’ve been different. I really do. You just have to believe me when I tell you I did what I had to to keep you safe. You and Sam.”

“Sam?” Dean frowns. “What’s Sam got to do with it?” He dreads the answer before the words are out of his mouth.

Mary takes a deep breath. “He’s your brother, Dean,” she reveals quietly. “I was pregnant with him the night I left.”

Dean feels the ground drop out beneath him. The world as he knows it suddenly spins out of control, upside down and inside out. His mind flies back to the night in the barn and he’s flooded with shame.

Part of him always knew the truth. Part of him isn’t surprised at all.

“Does he know?” Dean demands. “Did _Dad_ know?”

“Nobody knows.” Mary shakes her head. “And we need to keep it that way, you hear me? I’m telling you so you’ll understand why I gave him to you in the first place, so you’ll be loyal to him the way you are to me. But he can’t know, Dean. There’s something special about Sam. If the thing that killed my family ever finds out about him, it’ll come for him. I’ve seen it.”

Dean accepts her words, trusts them because they sound right to him. They make sense in some deep way that he doesn’t fully understand.

“He killed his own brother,” Dean whispers. “Our brother.”

Mary misunderstands him, shakes her head violently. “There’s nothing wrong with Sam, trust me,” she says. “He’s not a bad seed.”

“No, I know that!” Dean says sharply. “How can you even think that? I’m just thinking about how he’d blame himself even more than he already does if he finds out that Adam was his brother...”

Mary nods. “That’s right. That’s another good reason not to tell him. Dean, I’m counting on you. This is important.”

So Dean keeps his mother’s secret. He doesn’t tell Sam, not when Sam comes in to say goodbye, finally letting his tears fall as Dean promises they’ll be together soon. He doesn’t tell Bobby.

He sobs silently as he hears Sam and Mary ride away, under cover of nightfall in case the local sheriff and her posse are watching the house.

He vows to follow them as soon as he’s able. He’ll never return to the farm now. There’s nothing for him there. His dad and his brother are dead. His mother and Sam have gone West, and that’s where Dean’s future lies, too.

Bobby promises to come with him. He’s itching to get back on the road, and his farm is in shambles after years of working the Winchester farm anyway. When Dean’s ready, he’ll tag along, he says.

It’s three weeks before they saddle their horses and ride out. Ellen’s there to bid them farewell. She and a couple of the local boys have plans to open a roadhouse, and Dean promises to send customers her way as he and Bobby ride west.

Dean’s left hand is still stiff, but the scars on his chest and arms are starting to fade. His face won’t ever be the same, just as Adam had promised, but Dean never did like the idea of being a pretty boy. It’s a liability in his line of work, anyway.

They each carry a stash of hunters’ weapons, tied onto the back of their saddles next to their bed rolls. Dean hasn’t had a lot of experience fighting real monsters yet, but he’s been training since he was six, so he figures with Bobby’s help they’ll be all right. They’re as ready as they’ll ever be.

Dean looks back over his shoulder towards the only home he’s ever known, at Bobby’s house and the town in the distance, the road that leads to the former Winchester Ranch. Not a bad place to grow up, he decides, all things considered. He feels a flutter of excitement at the thought of seeing Sam again, of their future out West where the monsters run rampant and the mysteries and lies do, too.

There’s work to be done, new frontiers to explore, the possibility of settling somewhere new. Starting over.

Dean turns around in the saddle and leans forward to rub Remus’s neck as he taps his heels against her flanks.

“All right now, girl. Here we go.”

 

_fin_

**Author's Note:**

> This story is inspired by _Wuthering Heights_ by Bronte and _East of Eden_ by Steinbeck, as well as my love of old pioneer narratives and westerns. “Out of Nowhere” is a Johnny Green jazz standard that inspired the _Star Trek_ theme. _Miracles Out of Nowhere_ is the title of a song and film about the history of the band Kansas.


End file.
